Preparatory ground work for the multimillion dollar specialty hospital at Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara appeared stalled up to yesterday even as Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran maintained that the project was a “living one” and diverted questions about the status of the Indian line of credit for it to the Finance Ministry.
“It’s a living project, it’s being managed jointly by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance… we are going full ahead the Ministry of Health,its Permanent Secretary is interacting with the signed contractor and we will turn corners as they come,” Ramsaran told Stabroek News, when asked for an update on the project.
He added that all queries pertaining to finances should be directed to the Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh, since it is his ministry that is responsible for that aspect. When Stabroek News tried to contact Minister Singh, it was told that that he was out of office but a call would be returned. The questions were left with his technical officer but up to press time a return call never came.
Government is solely responsible for preparing the site before the actual building of the hospital commences. The monies to design, build and equip the state-of-the-art medical facility will come from the Government of India, through a line of credit of up to $20M USD or $4B.
The groundwork project was awarded to G Bovell Construction Company back in January to the tune of $98 million and works began on the 9th of January this year. The money allocated was to go towards land filling and preparation, building of the fence to the property, laying of drains, installation of four bridges and gates as entrances and exits and an access road.
The duration given for the completion of the site preparation works was three months. However, when Stabroek News visited the site at Turkeyen yesterday, there was no one present. The gate was closed and there was a notice to trespassers hung on it. An excavator and a bobcat were on the site. There was no southern or western fence, but the eastern one was completed and the northern was near completion. Perhaps due to rainfall, there were three huge holes filled with water while the rest of the compound had grass and mounds of earth at varying locations. Calls were made to the construction company responsible but one of the numbers listed in the telephone directory was disconnected and the other rang out.
While the contract to design, build and equip the hospital was awarded to the Indian company Surendra Engineering, Stabroek News was reliably informed that the monies have not yet been released by the Exim Bank of India.
Ramsaran did not answer questions on this situation, only saying, “As far as I am concerned at this moment I have not been advised otherwise …the Ministry of Finance has not interacted with me, the Ministry of Legal Affairs has not interacted with me, so we are going ahead and we are expected to start as per schedule.” He added that if this was not the case, he was sure the Minister of Finance would inform him.
A US$18,180,000 ($3,689,616,400) contract was awarded to Surendra Engineering for the project and since the announcement it has come under fire with not only one of the bidders but both parliamentary opposition parties calling for a probe into the award. Another Indian company, Fedders-Lloyd, had raised objections to the award of the contract to Surendra and local authorities were also forced to defend the manner in which the final decision was made.
“Fedders-Lloyd had written to Exim Bank of India outlying their concerns… what we do know is that the money has not yet been released by Exim Bank of India. As such the project is on hold,” a source close to the project recently told Stabroek News.
