With $19 billion to be spent on 74 projects in the coming months, people in the construction sector have a "good bit of work" coming their way, says Jearlean John, the chair of the Urban Development Corporation of T&T (Udecott).
Speaking at the May 6 appointment of the new Udecott board at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad hotel, John said Udecott has a mandate to execute 74 projects costing just over $19 billion.
In an interview on Tuesday at the offices of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), of which John is managing director, she responded to those in the construction sector who argue that Udecott was responsible for heating up the economy during the construction of the Government Campus Plaza.
John said: "It's not just more buildings. The buildings are useful buildings. Udecott will continue to do useful things. There are a number of projects on Udecott's radar that will do tremendous good for the national development.
"The same people who are saying the construction sector (will) heat up, saying they have no work. We are not going to go out there and do anything that injures the economy, certainly, but we have to do our job. There is some capacity now, a lot of redundancy in the system and we intend, between Udecott and HDC, over the next three months to soak up a lot of that."
Among ongoing and new projects Udecott is responsible for:
Ongoing projects HDC/Udecott:
-Chancery Lane hospital
-President's Cottage
-The Magnificient Seven
-Parliament
-Brian Lara Stadium
-Government Campus Plaza
-The Oncology Centre
-Knowsley Building
In the two-hour interview, John said Udecott and the HDC are soon expected to roll out their 2013 programme, which means there would be sufficient work to spread around to local contractors.
"These empty buildings, the tenders evaluated and awarded and the new projects start, it will soak up the main contractors, sub-contractors. I think the people in the construction sector they have a good bit of work coming their," John said.
Of the allegations levelled against the Udecott board under the previous administration, that the still-to-be-occupied Government Campus Plaza it employed more Chinese than local labour, John said: "When you have government-to-government arrangements, there are conditionalities, so part of it, I believe, I suppose, would have been they would have had to take some Chinese labour.
"What we would have been doing with these government-to-government arrangements since the Children's Hospital, we are negotiating a 50-50 (ratio of labour). What these companies do is that they buy as much as they can from T&T, so you negotiate all of these things. Our people are employed, but you also have the suppliers who are benefiting from the sales of the goods. You will have some element of foreign labour depending on how the government-to-government (contract) is negotiated and how rigid people are about it," she said.
Referring to the Chancery Lane project opposite the San Fernando General Hospital, John said the Austrian government totally used local labour, but their technical peoplem who made up one per cent of the project's labour force.
She said the situation is different for the Chinese as "they still want to bring some element of (Chinese labour) - a 50-50, that's what we negotiated so far." John said the unemployment in T&T is low at this point and it is anticipated when the HDC and Udecott roll out their 2013 programme, it may "soak up" labour in T&T. This means people who are underemployed would be fully employed.
"What they -- members of the construction sector -- are to guard against is that construction is cyclical. That is why when the construction slowed down, a lot of people were out of work. It is a cyclical thing. When the construction comes to an end, you have idle capacity. Now we have some idle capacity which we are going to pick up within the next few months, I am sure," John said.
Udecott under a new board
John retained her chairmanship when the new board of Udecott was appointed on May 6. Seven new members were appointed, two former members were retained.
The new board comprises: Dr Stephen Pilgrim, Anil Bridglal, Marlon Morris, Anthony Gopaul, Prem Samodee, Aiyegoro Ome, Rennie Mohammed and Shankar Bidaisee.
Earlier this year, Minister of Housing and the Environment Dr Roodal Moonilal told Parliament that Udecott invested in the CL Financial Group. Responding to this, John said there is a mechanism to recover the money, but she fears Udecott may not get back all of its invested funds.
"You are not going to get all of the money. You are probably going to get $0.80 on the dollar or thereabout. At the first board meeting, that was brought to the board. It was approved, so now they would go to CL Financial. Of the $100 million, we would probably recover $99.2 million. If we don't take the money now, we will not get it until 20 years from now."
Asked how the decision to make the investment in CL Financial came about, John said, "That was with the previous chairman," referring to Calder Hart. "The previous chairman invested that money into CL Financial."
Given that Udecott is the project manager for most of Government's projects, John was asked what would the $100 million be used for?
"That money really was supposed to have been part of the money to fund the police stations. I don't know what the thinking was. There was no documentation to say, well, I can't recall seeing a board note or something to say, well, the money is there sitting around and we could do a short-term investment, we'll earn some money in the meantime."
Asked what was done to prevent a recurrence of such an investment, John said no one can invest without first coming to the board for approval. She assured that under her watch, there would be no repeat of such an investment.
Referring to the HDC and its strategic direction, John said she had visited the cities of Delhi and Bangalore in India in February 201, along with Minister Moonilal and officials from the Ministry of Housing and the Environment, to examine various models of housing development across there.
"I think Dr Moonilal is looking for models wherever to see what else we can take from to put it in what we already have," John said.
Parliament refurbishment update:
"In the next four or five months, the work should have started. The Red House would be fully mobilised in terms of the restoration. All the things have been put in place. We have the restoration architect in place and now we are out to source the contract, if we don't already have the contract in place. Within the next four to five months, that project should be fully mobilised, not completed, completion by 2015."
"We have Stollmeyer's Castle and that should be coming to a conclusion within the next three months or so. We have Knowsley. The board is now in place. We will be looking at scoping that work. President's House is with the Ministry of Works, we are happy that it's been sorted. We, hopefully, would get Whitehall."