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Friday, July 25, 2025

Civ­il en­gi­neer says Ude­COTT not at fault

Blame contractor for Red House embarrassment

by

2004 days ago
20200130
Workmen climb the roof of the Red House, yesterday, to look for the areas which leaked on Tuesday.

Workmen climb the roof of the Red House, yesterday, to look for the areas which leaked on Tuesday.

NICOLE DRAYTON

“An em­bar­rass­ment to our coun­try.”

That’s how Prof Win­ston Suite, a civ­il en­gi­neer who works at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Man­age­ment and Civ­il In­fra­struc­ture Sys­tems Group de­scribed Tues­day’s leaks in the roof of the Red House fol­low­ing heavy and per­sis­tent show­ers.

Two leaks were the dis­cov­ered-the main one be­ing around the sky­light in the ro­tun­da.

A bro­ken rub­ber seal on the alu­mini­um flash­ing in the sky­light was iden­ti­fied as the source of the prob­lem.

The new­ly re­stored $441 mil­lion Red House re­opened last Fri­day in a gala cer­e­mo­ny which was at­tend­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who in a state­ment in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Mon­day, Row­ley re­leased all the ex­pen­di­ture fig­ures on the Red House restora­tion project.

Roof­ing and as­so­ci­at­ed car­pen­try works un­der­tak­en by Con­struc­tion Ser­vices and Sup­plies Ltd were priced at $20.1 mil­lion.

Row­ley said what ex­ists now on the roof “is not rust (as some would like it to be) but is new­ly in­stalled high-qual­i­ty cop­per roof­ing.”

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Suite said to find leaks in the his­toric build­ing “is a bit em­bar­rass­ing for the client, (UDe­COTT). The con­trac­tor should be aware that this could be very em­bar­rass­ing for every­body in­ter­na­tion­al­ly etcetera look­ing on at the project. So he has put us in that po­si­tion.”

The se­nior aca­d­e­m­ic said while some peo­ple have been blam­ing the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (UDe­COTT) - the project man­ag­er for what hap­pened, “they are not at fault. The per­son who is at fault for de­fects in the work is the con­trac­tor. And no­body is ac­cus­ing the con­trac­tor up to now. I be­lieve the con­trac­tor should be get­ting the crit­i­cism in the me­dia.”

He be­lieves the con­trac­tor owes a pub­lic apol­o­gy to UDe­COTT, Gov­ern­ment and by ex­ten­sion the pop­u­la­tion.

“I feel strong­ly about this. This is a high pro­file project so it’s even more sen­si­tive.”

When a roof is re­paired in the dry sea­son, Suite said work has to be dou­ble and triple checked to iden­ti­fy prob­lems be­fore the rainy sea­son be­gins.

Suite said the con­trac­tor could have done a test run on the roof be­fore the re­open­ing cer­e­mo­ny to en­sure all was well.

“He could have tak­en a hose with wa­ter and fo­cus wa­ter on the roof to make sure it not leak­ing be­cause if it leaks there is the em­bar­rass­ment for both him...for the client... and the pub­lic and for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad.”

For years, he said work­men and con­trac­tors have failed to pay at­ten­tion to the qual­i­ty of roofs built in the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors.

“This is an area of weak­ness in the en­gi­neer­ing and con­struc­tion prac­tice in Trinidad,” said Suite who taught civ­il en­gi­neer and served as a con­trac­tor for sev­en years.

Giv­ing an up­date on the leak, Ude­cott’s chair­man Noel Gar­cia said “an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plet­ed. They (con­trac­tor) have come up with a so­lu­tion and they are go­ing to im­ple­ment that so­lu­tion to bring an end to any pos­si­bil­i­ty of fur­ther leaks.”

He pro­vid­ed no fur­ther de­tails.

UDe­COTT had promised that the con­trac­tors will have the mat­ter rec­ti­fied as it falls with­in the de­fect li­a­bil­i­ty pe­ri­od of one year and will be fixed at no ad­di­tion­al costs.

From 8 am yes­ter­day, a scaf­fold­ing was erect­ed on the east­ern roof of the Red House, op­po­site Wood­ford Square, as a crew was seen ex­am­in­ing the roof in the blis­ter­ing sun.

A rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Guapo based Con­struc­tion Ser­vices and Sup­plies Ltd when con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia on their busi­ness phone yes­ter­day said she had “no com­ment.”


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