SIGMA’S IMPOSSIBLE TIMELINE:

SIGMA’S IMPOSSIBLE TIMELINE:

How GWI’s Own Contracts Contradict Sigma Engineers’ Sworn Public Denial

OPINION BY: Staff Writer –August 2026

Guyana Water Incorporated and Sigma Engineers Ltd Inc cannot both be telling the truth. That is not editorializing — it is arithmetic. GWI’s own public statement, its own signed contracts, and its own Facebook page place Sigma Engineers on the receiving end of government water infrastructure contracts beginning October 13, 2022 — seven days after the company was incorporated. Sigma’s public rebuttal, delivered through counsel and threatening legal action against Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, insists the company’s first Guyanese contract was not awarded until 2026.

Both statements cannot stand. The documentary record, obtained and cross-verified by The 592 Guardian, resolves the contradiction — and it does not resolve in Sigma’s favor.

THE CLAIM SIGMA MADE

Responding to Mohamed’s allegations, Sigma Engineers issued a statement rejecting what it called “serious misrepresentations of the facts” and confirming it had retained legal counsel to pursue action. On the specific question of timing, Sigma’s statement was unambiguous: the company denied Mohamed’s claim that it was established just five working days before receiving a government contract, and stated instead that its Guyana-registered entity — properly incorporated on October 6, 2022 — did not receive its first Guyanese contract until 2026, following competitive bidding through the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).

Sigma further confirmed that Mohamed Aqtar Ali, brother of President Irfaan Ali, is engaged by its Guyana operation as a “senior technical consultant,” while denying he holds any affiliation with the company’s Bangladesh parent.

WHAT THE PAPER TRAIL ACTUALLY SHOWS

The 592 Guardian has obtained the Certificate of Incorporation for Sigma Engineers L.T.D. Inc — Company No. 13572, incorporated under Guyana’s Companies Act on October 6, 2022, with M. Tamjeed Rahmaan listed as sole incorporator, director and secretary. We have also obtained the underlying GWI contract, its governing addendum, and the NPTA Board Approval letters covering every major water-sector award Sigma has received since.

Contract No. GWI 2022/43430 — the procurement of plant design, supply and installation of water treatment facilities for Lot 3 (Caledonia, Cummings Lodge and Bachelor’s Adventure, Region 4) — is dated October 13, 2022. That is seven days after Sigma’s incorporation, not four years, and the contract explicitly states it was entered into via international competitive bidding under NPTAB, the very process Sigma’s statement credits for its supposed first award.

The contract was subsequently amended by Addendum 2, dated February 29, 2024, raising the total contract sum from GYD $3,697,274,857 to GYD $3,951,992,986 under Variation Order No. 1 — a document bearing the signature of M. Tamjeed Rahmaan himself, accepting the change order on behalf of the contractor.  

The same individual named as Sigma’s sole director personally signed contract paperwork in 2024 — two years before the company’s public claim that no such contract existed.

THE FULL CONTRACT RECORD

GWI’s public statement, issued in response to Mohamed’s allegations, credited Sigma with a run of contracts across the water sector: Lot 3, the Hope Surface Water Treatment Plant, the Shelter Belt rehabilitation, a well-drilling programme, and the CDB-financed Leguan and Wakenaam facilities. The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board’s own award letters confirm each of these in turn.

*Amended sum reflecting Variation Order No. 1 (Feb 2024); original contract sum was GYD $3,697,274,857.

Summed together, these five contracts total approximately GYD $11.86 billion — closely approaching the figure of more than $12 billion that Mohamed cited in his original allegations, a figure Sigma’s statement did not directly address.

GWI’S OWN OFFICIALS, ON THE RECORD

GWI Chief Executive Officer Shaik Baksh has publicly defended the award process itself, stating that Sigma secured its contracts through international tenders and was the lowest responsive bidder on several projects. Asked about Aqtar Ali’s involvement, Baksh was direct: “So far as GWI is concerned, he was never a figure.”

That statement addresses procurement influence. It does not address — and GWI’s own institutional Facebook page undercuts — the question of who has actually been photographed standing beside Sigma’s crews at completed GWI facilities. GWI’s official account posted images of Baksh posing with Sigma’s on-site staff at the newly constructed Cummings Lodge plant, captioned: “The New Cummings Lodge Water Treatment Plant was constructed by Sigma Engineering Ltd at a cost of GYD $1.3 billion, with a team comprising of several Guyanese staff.” The cost figure in that caption — $1.3 billion — closely matches the $1,304,444,724 final contract price for Cummings Lodge confirmed in the signed change-order documents obtained by this publication. The claim of “several Guyanese staff,” however, is not visually supported by the photograph GWI itself chose to publish alongside it.

GWI CEO with Sigma staff

SIGMA’S NARROWING DEFENSE

Sigma’s position, as relayed through its attorneys, has narrowed since its initial public statement. Rather than continuing to deny the existence of earlier contracts outright, Sigma’s lawyer has maintained — per reporting citing the correspondence — that the locally incorporated Sigma Engineers Ltd Inc has received only one contract since its 2022 registration: a contract for rehabilitation of GWI’s Shelter Belt facility, which Sigma places in 2026.

The NPTAB’s own award letter for that project is dated December 31, 2025 — not 2026 — narrowing, though not eliminating, the discrepancy in Sigma’s timeline. That letter names the awardee “Sigma Engineers Ltd Inc.” By contrast, NPTA’s November 2024 award letter for the Hope plant names the awardee simply “Sigma Engineers Ltd” — no “Inc.” Whether this inconsistency in NPTA’s own paperwork reflects two distinct corporate entities, or simply administrative imprecision, has not been established.

What can be established is that NPTA treats both awards as going to the same contractor: identical CEO addressee, identical board chairman, identical procurement process.

If Sigma intends to argue that a technical corporate distinction — Ltd versus Ltd Inc — separates the entity that signed the 2022 Lot 3 contract from the entity now facing public scrutiny, that argument has not yet been made explicitly, and it does not appear to account for M. Tamjeed Rahmaan’s personal signature on 2024 contract paperwork under the Sigma Engineers name.

WHAT REMAINS UNRESOLVED

Aqtar Ali has separately denied, through his attorney, being a director or shareholder in any company named by Mohamed, and has threatened defamation proceedings over public statements made about him. Sigma has confirmed Aqtar Ali’s role as a senior technical consultant to its Guyana operation without detailing when he was engaged or on what terms. None of the documents obtained by this publication place Aqtar Ali’s name on Sigma’s corporate filings, which list Rahmaan alone as incorporator, director and secretary.

What the documentary record does establish, without need for inference, is this: Sigma Engineers held a signed, NPTAB-tendered government water contract within seven days of its Guyana incorporation in October 2022 — not, as the company’s public statement claimed, four years later in 2026. GWI’s own contracts, GWI’s own change orders, GWI’s own NPTA award letters, and GWI’s own Facebook page all place that timeline beyond dispute.            Sigma Engineers’ public statement to the contrary is not merely mistaken.

Measured against the documents its own director signed, it is not true.

— The Board