Under the former government, the Ministry of Education made full payments on a contract to a Trinidadian firm for design and supervision services for the construction of a new St. Rose’s High School building, including foundation designs that were later found to be inadequate and required the hiring of more consultants for redesigns.
In the Report on the Public Accounts for 2019, which was released by the National Assembly last week, Auditor General Deodat Sharma highlighted the fact that supervising consultants failed to administer contracts in the best interests of the Ministries/Departments.
One such instance related to the construction of St. Rose’s High School, where the Byno-Rowe Wiltshire Partnership of Trinidad and Tobago was retained. Additionally, advance payments totalling a little under $90 million were made to Courtney Benn Contracting Services for the construction, which has still not progressed beyond initial stages.
The construction contract has since been terminated but there has been no feedback on any action related to the Trinidadian consultant.
The contract for the construction of the St Rose’s High School comprises the construction of a new three-storey reinforced concrete school building complete with electrical, plumbing and rain water installations, ceiling, tiling works, painting and finishes, along with external works inclusive of perimeter fence, guard hut, culvert, water reservoir and landscaping works. According to the Audit Office report, the original consultant received full payment of US$134,790 for design and supervision of the works yet no construction works were in progress on site at the time of reporting and the contractor executed very little work up to the time of physical verification.
“As such, it is unclear what the consultant was supervising to receive full payment by the Ministry for the supervision phase of the contract,” the AG’s report notes.
It also questioned why the Byno-Rowe Wiltshire Partnership was paid for designing an inadequate foundation for the school building.
This is the second audit report which has raised serious concerns about the procurement process related to the construction of the senior secondary school.
In the report covering the year 2018, Sharma’s office had advised the Ministry of Education to terminate the more than $350 million contract for the construction after the contractor failed to complete the work more than a year after the award. It had stated that the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) awarded a contract in the sum of $352.710 million for construction of the school along Church Street but though the contractor received an advance payment of $52.906 million followed by one interim payment of $5.186 million, no work had been completed.
“At the time of reporting the Advance Payment was not recovered [and] based on an examination of the contract and a physical verification of completed works, measurements and calculations [it] was discovered that…the site was abandoned and overrun with bushes. No equipment or materials were on site, while the only personnel from the contractor present was a security guard,” the previous report said.
It also drew attention to the fact that though the Byno-Rowe Wiltshire Partnership had been issued a contract in the sum of US$134,790 for provision of consultancy services (Design and Supervision) for the reconstruction of the school in 2017, no details regarding the advertisement for the design and supervision services or Evaluation Report were presented for audit examination.
“One bid was received and the contract was awarded to the sole bidder with a letter of acceptance issued to the consultant on 30 August 2017. The signed contract agreement, however, was undated and stated the year as 2017. The duration for the
services was from 30 August 2017 to 30 July 2018 for the design phase, while the supervision services commenced upon the signing of the contract for the construction works,” Sharma had explained.
In this year’s report, Sharma’s office explains that an audit examination has revealed that though the consultant was responsible for all soil investigations and to design the foundation for the school, the Ministry paid another consultant to review and redesign the foundation, based on a decision that the original foundation was inadequate.
“As such, the Ministry paid the first consultant for designing an inadequate foundation for the school building,” the report concluded, before adding that the ministry engaged two additional consultants to provide services for redesigning the foundation for the school after they had accepted the initial foundation design and went ahead with Tendering and Awarding the contract for construction.
The contract for the second consultant was awarded in the sum of $6.575 million by NPTAB on the 30 January 2019 for an independent assessment to be conducted to determine whether a deep foundation was required for the construction of the building.
“No details regarding the Tendering and Award of this consultancy contract was seen and it is unclear what procurement procedures were utilized by the Ministry in the awarding this second consultancy contract,” the report notes
The third consultant was paid the sum of $432,000 for the calculation of loads of the building for redesigning the foundation.
The contract for construction was awarded to the lowest evaluated bidder on the 23 April 2018 in the sum of $352.710 million and granted Cabinet Decision approval on the 18 April 2018. The Contract was signed on the 8 August 2018 with duration of 18 months for
completion and a Defects Liability Period of three months the start date was seven days from the signing of the contract.
Further, on 17 August 2019, the NPTAB awarded an approval to increase the contract sum by $59.595M due to the scope of the contract being extended to include a change to the foundation design whereby a deeper foundation was required using timber piles. As such, the contract sum increased from $352.710 million to $412.304 million, with the duration of the contract extended by 20 months, resulting in a revised completion date of 23 August 2021.
Physical verification carried out on 10 September 2020 revealed that no works were in progress on site. However, the works for the driving of 224 timber piles for the foundation of the school building was completed.
The Auditor General’s office raised questions about payments made to the Contractor totaling nearly $90 million, including an initial advance of $52.906 million.
“The contractor was paid a second advance payment of $28.963 million on 10 January 2020 at this time no significant works had commenced on site and as such, the first advance payment made would not have been expended. An analysis of the payments made to the contractor revealed that having received the first Advance Payment of $52.906 million, the contractor was further paid the sums of $5.186 million and $1.379 million under Valuations №. 2 and №. 3, respectively, followed by several small payments for security charges. Therefore, it is unclear what this first advance payment was used for,” the report states.
Sharma’s office stressed that while the ministry went ahead and paid the contractor a second advance, no evidence was seen whereby the contractor used the advance payments exclusively to pay for plant, machinery, and equipment, materials and other expenses required directly for the execution of the contract, as required under clause 34.2 of the General Conditions of contract.
This clause also stated, “The contractor shall demonstrate that Advance Payment has been used for the purposes of execution of the Contract by supplying copies of invoices or other documents.”
Additionally both Advance Payment Bonds expired since March 2020 and none of the advance payments were recovered.
This issue was not mentioned by Attorney General Anil Nandlall when he terminated the contract in November.
According to the missive sent to the company, the contract was terminated on the grounds that the company failed to complete the project in a timely manner and further has failed to comply with the works schedule. It was noted that only 9% of works has been completed since the extension while the cost of the project increased from $352.7 million to $412.3 million to include pile driving.
Saved as St Roses 2020
Caption: The Saint Rose’s High School construction site on 10 September 2020 (Audit Office of Guyana photo)
