Transport Minister Robeson Benn on Saturday directed questions on possible financial redress from the contractors and supervising firm over defects in the Supenaam stelling’s docking system to Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development.
“It had nothing to do with our Ministry. We went in and [fixed],” Benn said in an invited comment. “It was not under my Ministry.”
The defects were highlighted in an engineering study of the stelling, which was presented in the National Assembly last Thursday in response to a question by AFC MP Khemraj Ramjattan.
The writers of the report, engineers Bert Carter and Marcel Gaskin, probed the failure of the docking system at the Supenaam Stelling in 2010 and flayed both the supervisor VIKAB Engineering and contractor BK International. Their findings raised concerns about the integrity of the design and unauthorised changes, leading to wasteful expenditure.
According to the authors of the report, BK International as well as the two consulting firms associated with the construction of the bungled stelling all contributed to the significant setbacks that beset the $450M project. While former President Bharrat Jagdeo announced in May last year that taxpayers would have to foot the bill for remedial works, Gaskin and Carter were of the view that for the unapproved and poor works, the government should write VIKAB Engineering Consultants about compensation.
It is unclear if President Jagdeo or the government sought to recoup any money from those engaged in the project.
“My remit was to go in there and get the facility operational and transfer [operations] from Adventure to Supenaam. We are finalising [the arrangements] to have the roll on/ roll off mechanism of the stelling into operation,” Benn said on Saturday.
“We are working to get the ferries operational from this month end but it is looking tight,” he added, while noting that he was about to make a visit to the Supenaam Stelling to assess its readiness to accommodate the two new ferries acquired from China.
But he said that upon the completion of the accommodations at both the Parika and Supenaam stellings, the crew that would be working on the two ferries will have to undergo training in berthing and docking the two vessels safely at the two stellings.
In explaining the delays in the completion of work at Parika and Supenaam, Benn said that the main issue has been pile-driving, aspects of which could not be done when the tide was high.
The report found that the quality of the work done as well as the workmanship associated with the contractor BK International reflected very poorly on the supervising capacity of VIKAB Engineering. It also said that the design shortcoming did not exonerate BK International from blame.
It pointed out that VIKAB Engineering in collaboration with Canadian firm SNC Lavalin International designed the project. Both VIKAB and SNC Lavalin have had longstanding association with projects in Guyana.
However, SNC Lavalin was said to have dropped out of the project for cost reasons, though the engineers could find no documents substantiating this.
