Kali­fa Clyne

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er says he will not apol­o­gise for award­ing con­tracts to the most com­pe­tent con­trac­tors in pref­er­ence to the cheap­est bid­der.He said this while ad­dress­ing an au­di­ence dur­ing Mon­day's open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Low­er Laven­tille Road, East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain.Warn­er said a week­ly news­pa­per had re­port­ed that he had award­ed a bridge con­tract to the high­est bid­der."Not every­body with a let­ter­head and a shov­el or a back­hoe is a con­trac­tor," said Warn­er.Warn­er re­vealed that many con­trac­tors had re­fused to pave Laven­tille Road be­cause of fear of the res­i­dents and taxi dri­vers.Warn­er al­so took the time to ad­mon­ish peo­ple who felt that Gov­ern­ment did not do work in con­stituen­cies held by Op­po­si­tion mem­bers."We fix roads in La Brea, Point Fortin, Diego Mar­tin North and Diego Mar­tin cen­tral," said Warn­er.He added that at­ten­tion would be giv­en to all ar­eas say­ing they would not suf­fer be­cause of pol­i­tics.He said how­ev­er that works would take time as every project could not be com­plet­ed at once.The road was com­plet­ed by Ju­nior Sam­my Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny (JUSAM­CO) and CAL­CO Con­struc­tion.