GN recommends changes to streamline NNI

Louie Bruce, the owner of Sudliq Developments Ltd. in Coral Harbour, built this heated garage — the only one in the community — so that fuel delivery trucks could be kept warm and operate without problems in the winter. However, he lost the Government of Nunavut fuel contract in late 2011. (FILE PHOTO)

The Government of Nunavut has decided not to terminate the fuel contract awarded last September to Katudgevik Co-operatives Association Ltd. in Coral Harbour.

That’s despite the successful appeal lodged by Sudliq Developments Ltd., which had held that contract for 25 years, with the Nunavummi Nangminiqaqtunik Ikajuuti appeals board against the GN decision.

In its appeal, Louie Bruce’s 100-per-cent Inuit-owned company cited errors in the NNI process that’s supposed to respect Article 24 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement on helping Inuit-owned businesses get government contracts.

The Dec. 11 ruling of the NNI appeals board, which makes sure the NNI policy is correctly applied, said its members should have access to “detailed notes” about how the GN’s evaluation committee comes to conclusions so it can be “readily understood and easily compared.”

The appeals board also questioned aspects of the co-op’s Request For Proposal submission. That’s because instead of using the form filled in by Sudliq called “NNI Incentives Application Form,” the co-op used a form of its own design.

In its listing of Inuit firms that would benefit from the contract, “the information [from the co-op] was being provided in a way that could not be verified.”

“It is unclear to the Board how any award could have been made, as the information was being provided in a way that could not be verified,” the board concluded, and, as a result, “could not have applied the NNI Policy correctly.”

However, the NNI appeals board decisions are not binding on the GN.

And the GN has decided that Katudgevik, which took over fuel delivery in Coral Harbour Nov. 1, will retain its fuel delivery contract.

Both Sudliq and Katudgevik were evaluated “equally and fairly” throughout the RFP process, said a Feb. 20 letter signed by Kathleen Lausman, the deputy minister of Community and Government Services, sent to the NNI appeals board and obtained by Nunatsiaq News.

The GN did not agree with the NNI appeals board that there was an error in how the GN had communicated with Sudliq, she said.

The “GN will not terminate the contract awarded to Katudgevik Cooperatives Association Limited,” Lausman said.

But the GN did accept the appeals board’s recommendation to standardize NNI forms.

The Feb. 20 letter said the GN recommends the creation of a mandatory “NNI Incentive Application Form.”

And it also said it will reinforce and educate evaluators of RFP process the importance of maintaining “detailed notes” to support its evaluation decisions.

The Feb. 20 decision elicited criticism from former GN minister Manitok Thompson, one of the architect’s of the NNI policy and a sister of Sudliq’s owner, Bruce.

“The GN should have consulted Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. first before they wrote the letter to us.The GN has just rejected the decision on the NNI board without advising or consult NTI,” Thompson said in an email. “I believe the government is in violation of the land claims relationship.”

GNletterFeb.20