(Trinidad Express) The Office of the Procurement Regulator will be asked to investigate the Housing Development Corpora-tion’s (HDC) intention to award China Harbour Engineering Company (T&T) Ltd a near half-a-billion-dollar contract to construct houses in Santa Rosa.
The Express understands that at least two contractors will be filing a request for an investigation.
The HDC had issued an invitation to tender for Package 1 of the provision of design-build services at the HDC’s Santa Rosa Housing Development.
The Express obtained documentation which showed that the HDC received bids from 11 companies with significantly lower bids than the Chinese company, which submitted a bid of $475.8 million.
By letter, dated July 31, 2024, the HDC informed bidders of its intention to award the Chinese company the contract and advised that there will be a standstill period between July 31 and August 14 in accordance with Section 35 of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act.
During this ten-day period, contractors can call on the Procurement Regulator to investigate.
Concrete jungles?
Executive chairman of NH International (Caribbean) Ltd Emile Elias told the Express yesterday that his company more than likely will be asking for a probe.
Speaking to the Express by phone, he said the HDC’s Request for Pro-posals (RFP) indicated they wanted a plan for single family homes and townhouses in a ratio of 60:40. He said this plan would obviously contain a lot less units as opposed to a “concrete jungle” plan similar to what exists in Hong Kong.
Elias said that there is no information on what the Chinese submitted and whether they proposed more units and high rise buildings.
He said if they did, then this was not in keeping with the RFP.
“If you are going to build multi-storey buildings, high rises of four to five to six storeys, and dump them all over the site, that is not what the RFP said. The RFP was very clear that it wanted single-family homes and townhouses in a ratio of 60:40,” he said.
The HDC needs to
disclose whether the Chinese company submitted a bid conforming to the RFP, he said.
“When we finish our analysis we will more than likely refer to the regulator. The HDC needs to disclose whether the Chinese price conforms with the RFP and what in fact are they building for that money? What kind of units and the size?” said Elias.
He added, “We don’t want 600 square feet and 700 square feet—it’s like concrete boxes; is that what we going to build? If the intention of the HDC was to maximise the number of units they could possibly get on the land, they should have said so. They didn’t say that,”
He said if that was the case, then companies could have submitted plans for a “concrete jungle”, like what exists in Maloney.
Meanwhile, former Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal yesterday called on the HDC to make public all information related to this contract.
Moonilal said it was atrocious that the Government has made a secret deal with a company out of China to construct houses at the cost of denying Trinidad and Tobago companies and enterprises and workers the opportunity to participate in economic activity, promote income re-distribution and share wealth and prosperity.
He called for a “full detailed account” on this matter by the Government and the housing minister on how this Chinese company was able to secure this contract.
“When one considers that a housing contract with another Chinese company was blown to bits just about two to three years ago, one understands that these deals must be made in public. They must be followed by accountability and transparency and openness. And today I call upon the Ministry of Housing to issue a statement urgently on the process used, the procedure for tendering, evaluation and acceptance of this large-scale mega housing deal,” he said.