Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Cana­di­an firm SNC-Lavalin Con­struc­tors Inc was paid TT$2.2 mil­lion by the T&T Gov­ern­ment to de­sign the Pe­nal hos­pi­tal, de­spite re­ceiv­ing a ten-year ban from the World Bank from bid­ding on con­tracts which it fund­ed.So said Ude­cott's me­dia events and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach man­ag­er, Rox­anne Sta­ple­ton-Whyms, yes­ter­day.

In an e-mail, Sta­ple­ton-Whyms said there were no on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Ude­cott and the Cana­di­an Com­mer­cial Cor­po­ra­tion (CCC) over the con­tract. The $1 bil­lion hos­pi­tal is ex­pect­ed to be built at Clarke Road, Pe­nal.A due dili­gence re­view is on­go­ing for the con­struc­tion phase of the project.Sta­ple­ton-Whyms could not pro­vide any de­tails on the re­view. How­ev­er, once it was com­plet­ed, the CCC would de­cide whether SNC-Lavalin qual­i­fied for the project, it was stat­ed.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said Gov­ern­ment still re­served the right to re­ject the con­tract if the CCC failed to ex­plain on what grounds SNC-Lavalin was cho­sen.The project is di­vid­ed in­to two phas­es: De­sign and con­struc­tion.Ude­cott's CEO Kurt Ram­lal said the de­sign phase of the project was al­most com­plet­ed. How­ev­er, he said, pay­ment terms have not been fi­nalised as tenets were still be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed.

Ram­lal added that CCC and Ude­cott were work­ing on the de­vel­op­ment of a con­tract for phase two.A let­ter sent to Ram­lal from Luc Al­lary, the re­gion­al di­rec­tor of the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca of the Cana­di­an Com­mer­cial Cor­po­ra­tion, said SNC-Lavalin Con­struc­tors In­ter­na­tion­al Inc was re­tained for the project.

The let­ter, dat­ed No­vem­ber 1, 2012, read: "As stat­ed in the Frame­work Arrange­ment be­tween our re­spec­tive gov­ern­ments, CCC con­firms that it has en­gaged SNC- Lavalin Con­struc­tors In­ter­na­tion­al Inc, one of the lead­ing en­gi­neer­ing and con­struc­tion groups in the world, as its Cana­di­an sup­pli­er to de­sign, en­gi­neer, pro­cure, con­struct and com­mis­sion the hos­pi­tal in the town of Pe­nal."

When ques­tioned about the na­ture of the re­view, High Com­mis­sion­er for Cana­da Ger­ard Lat­ulippe said the con­tract for the con­struc­tion phase would be pro­posed to the T&T Gov­ern­ment for its sig­na­ture once the CCC had com­plet­ed a re­view of SNC-Lavalin's fi­nan­cial, man­age­r­i­al, tech­ni­cal, cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ca­pa­bil­i­ties and its com­mit­ment to eth­i­cal busi­ness prac­tices.

Asked why the due dili­gence re­view on the sec­ond phase of the con­tract was tak­ing so long, Lat­ulippe said:

"The CCC car­ries a strong due dili­gence re­view of the firms it works with pri­or to the sig­na­ture of a con­tract. The re­view in­volves an as­sess­ment of the firms' fi­nan­cial, man­age­r­i­al, tech­ni­cal, and Cor­po­rate So­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty (CSR) ca­pa­bil­i­ties to en­sure the suc­cess of the project.

"The CSR as­sess­ment in­cludes a re­view of gov­er­nance and process­es to en­sure eth­i­cal busi­ness prac­tices, com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able en­vi­ron­men­tal prac­tices and knowl­edge trans­fer to the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion."Lat­ulippe added: " CCC takes very se­ri­ous­ly and con­sid­ers the due dili­gence process as key com­mit­ments to its gov­ern­ment part­ners. "These re­views are al­ways com­plex and CCC must there­fore take the time to en­sure all par­ties are as­sured the con­tract will meet any lev­el of scruti­ny."

T&T's Com­mis­sion­er to Cana­da Philip Buxo held the po­si­tion of di­rec­tor of the Cari­com Re­gion En­er­gy and In­fra­struc­ture Di­vi­sion of SNC-Lavalin.How­ev­er, he has dis­tanced him­self from the project, say­ing he was nev­er in­volved in the choice of con­tracts.The CCC is a fed­er­al crown cor­po­ra­tion man­dat­ed to fa­cil­i­tate in­ter­na­tion­al trade on be­half of Cana­di­an in­dus­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in gov­ern­ment mar­kets.

The cor­po­ra­tion's busi­ness lines are struc­tured to sup­port Cana­di­an com­pa­nies con­tract­ing in a va­ri­ety of in­dus­tries and sec­tors.It rep­re­sents Cana­di­an in­ter­ests while Ude­cott is su­per­vis­ing the con­tract for the T&T Gov­ern­ment.