Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Kellawan Lall urged participants at a one-day training programme on Friday not to encourage corruption or wilful delay of works on projects in the various Regions and advised that any such activity should be reported to authorities.
The workshop was held in the boardroom of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development for engineers, superintendents, and senior superintendents of work and building overseers, the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported.
He said that “more capacity has to be created on the ground because more and more the Central Government depends on the Regional system to deliver more goods and services.”
The minister also told participants that he hopes that the training would help them and that this type of initiative will continue so as to improve the services of the ministry.
And contractors who are not performing well on a consistent basis should be ‘blacklisted’ since this cannot be tolerated in safeguarding the public interest, Lall pointed out.
Meanwhile, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development Sewchan said that the training is part of the ministry’s annual activity and the aim is to equip the participants to perform their duties in a more efficient and effective manner.
According to GINA, Sewchan also stated that the most important aspect of training deals with monitoring and evaluation where the technical officers will have to ensure that when contracts are awarded, from the time the commencement letter is issued and the preparatory aspect of the work commences, technical officers are on the ground to ensure that the scope of the work is carried out.
“Some of the contractors are not delivering quality work so we see it fit that we emphasize to our technical officers to ensure proper supervising and monitoring of those contracts at the Regional level,” Sewchan is quoted as saying.
The purpose of the training, GINA reported, is to improve the standard of work of contractors through proper monitoring and evaluation within the respective regions.
It is aimed too at improving the capacity of the Works Department of the Regional Administration and bringing about adequate monitoring and support of the operations of the Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs).