(Trinidad Express) Seventy nationals have lost their jobs following the decision of the Shanghai Construction Group to throw in the trowel on the construction of the Central Block at the Port of Spain General Hospital (POSGH) project.
This was disclosed by chairman of the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) Noel Garcia while speaking on i95.5FM yesterday.
Garcia said: “The contract with Shanghai has been terminated…from our understanding, there were about 70 local employees, the rest were Chinese.”
“The project is ongoing. We have one aspect of that project that has come to a halt, but to say that the project has come to a halt is absolutely not true,” he added.
However, he said after a two-hour-long meeting with the contractor on Monday, UDeCOTT addressed all Shanghai’s concerns and the ball is now in their court as to whether or not they will move forward with the project.
Until then, work on the Central Block is on pause, but he said Shanghai promised to give a response by February 7.
In the meantime, Garcia said UDeCOTT has a number of subcontractors to supply the hospital equipment and to do the demolition.
When asked if Shanghai terminated the contract because they anticipated further losses, Garcia replied: “Yes. Yes, it is clear that the price that they quoted, they were of the view that they could not bring the project in at that price and therefore were demanding that we grant the variations ,and if we didn’t then they were not prepared to continue.”
Asked if UDeCOTT will be hiring a new contractor, he said: “At this point, no. What we have done is to sit with Shanghai to come to some resolution. We have given ourselves until the second week of February. If we cannot find a resolution, we will then use our procurement process to procure another contractor.”
UNC untruths
Also responding to allegations made by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal during a United National Congress (UNC) virtual forum held on Monday, Garcia said: “The other allegation that Dr Moonilal made is that Shanghai exited the project because the Government tried to force a subcontractor on Shanghai; again, that is totally untrue.”
UDeCOTT also issued a news release yesterday, further reiterating its stance on Moonilal’s allegations.
In relation to the claim that a sum of $300 million has been lost on the project, UDeCOTT said all sums paid to SCG (Caribbean) Group Ltd were certified by an independent engineer and were directly related to the milestones achieved and works completed under the contract to date. As such, UDeCOTT cannot support any claims that the monies dispersed to date are a loss to the project, it said.
In response to the allegation that the contract was “organised in a way for a new local subcontractor to get into that project” and that there was an attempt to force a local subcontractor to take over the project, UDeCOTT said the contract for the Redevelopment of the Central Block is guided by the FIDIC Yellow Book, under which the contractor, in this case SGC (Caribbean) Group Ltd, has sole responsibility for the selection and management of subcontractors.
Additionally, UDeCOTT said at no time during the contract did it engage any subcontractor for the project or assert control over the subcontractors engaged by the contractor.
