-raises possibility of blacklisting
President Irfaan Ali yesterday met with the contractors responsible for the construction of schools and educational buildings throughout the country and issued a stern warning that those found not fulfilling their contractual obligations will be penalized and could possibly be blacklisted from future contracts.
Several contractors are far behind in the construction of schools.
Also present at the meeting yesterday were the regional executive officers (REOs) and regional engineers for the ten administrative regions, and Ali told those gathered that he wanted to make it very clear that these projects must be managed properly as he stressed the importance of the education sector to his government.
The President stated, “We are going to hold the REOs and engineers accountable for all of these projects and I want the contractors to understand from day one once there are breaches and the contractors are not fulfilling their responsibility I need letters to be written and letters to be placed in the files. At the end of the contractual period or before if there is cause for termination the file must be closed and a copy of the file must be sent to the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board so that they will know that these contractors are not performing.”
He stressed that contractors must understand this, as he pointed out that many contractors sometimes bid in regions where they do not even check the site beforehand, “and when they get the project they said ‘oh we didn’t know it was so far’, but because evaluators evaluate based on a criteria and you meet the criteria and you have the lowest bid you get the job.”
As such the president said that such excuses will not be tolerated, adding, “most of these projects (were) slated to be completed between fifteen to eighteen months.”
He added that it would be in the interest of the contractors to ensure that they are not “blacklisted”, noting, “there will be (penalties) for contractors and it can cost you your company too because if you don’t perform and you get blacklisted you will not get new projects.”
Also present at yesterday’s meeting was the Minister with Responsibility for Finance, Ashni Singh and Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand.
Ali stated that he wanted to include the ministry and regional staff since “the ministry also has a responsibly to ensure that the work is completed within time, within budget and also to the quality that we expect… Most of these facilities are very modern facilities, they are built to give the education sector all available infrastructure that it requires to disseminate educational product to the population.”
Meanwhile, at the meeting yesterday Ali went through some of the projects and sought updates as to the completion time from the contractors present.
