Dear Editor,
It was reported in the news media on February 17, that due to bad contract management, the East Bank and East Coast Demerara Highway improvement projects funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have cost the government $543M and still counting for unfinished contract work on these road projects.
As a result of this large cost overrun and project delay completion of nearly three years, the government decided to terminate the contracts which were awarded to Dipcon and Courtney Benn Contracting Services Limited. For the record, these were contractors involved in construction of the Hope Canal, a government funded project which had large time and cost overruns as well as several defects which surfaced after construction.
Minister of Public Infrastructure (MoPI) David Patterson appeared to have lapsed in the execution of his duties. It is inconceivable that he allowed these failed contractors as well as the supervising consultants, firstly to be awarded subsequent contracts despite their past poor performance on government contracts; and secondly, authorizing payments to them for work which was never done. In this respect, Minister Patterson should have reviewed the performance of his staff, particularly the chief roads and bridge officer who failed to monitor the work of the supervisors and contractors and authorized partial payments to them for work not done. Hence the cause for the over-payment.
Minister Patterson is fully aware through his training and work experience that in any contract there are clauses whereby the supervising consultant monitoring construction of a project has to ensure that the work done was in accordance with the plans and specifications, and partial payments are only recommended for work done and/or for materials on site. He is also expected to alert the government of any contract delay and non-compliance with the plans and specifications.
Therefore it is unimaginable that the MoPI allowed the above-mentioned contractors to be over-paid and chalk up large time overruns, then allowed them to abandon the projects without any financial penalty while leaving the country with a heavy debt to service and unfinished projects to complete.
Emil McGarrel, Permanent Secretary, of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure implied in his statement that the IDB funded road projects did not allow the government to impose penalties on contractors for non-performance of work, only termination could be enforced. The facts suggest otherwise since the IDB loan agreement with the government did not have any restrictive clause regarding the imposition of penalties for non-performance by contractors.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan