An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers
@guardian.co.tt

For­mer T&T Con­trac­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Emile Elias is call­ing on both the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to put their dif­fer­ences aside and cre­ate the laws that are re­quired to face the un­prece­dent­ed crime wave the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

Elias made the com­ment at the 55th An­niver­sary and Con­trac­tor of the Year Din­ner and Awards func­tion at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day evening. Elias, who is al­so the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of NH In­ter­na­tion­al, said the crime sit­u­a­tion was un­prece­dent­ed, as the coun­try nev­er had to face so many armed crim­i­nals, along with their “bold­face at­ti­tude”.

“We have to urge the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to stop play­ing the fool, get to­geth­er and cre­ate an agree­ment for par­lia­men­tary ini­tia­tives that would strength­en the pow­ers of the po­lice and the ju­di­cia­ry, and these amend­ments re­quire a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty. So, I al­so want the as­so­ci­a­tion to call on both par­ties to sit down and put the prop­er leg­is­la­tion in place to deal with this se­ri­ous is­sue,” the busi­ness­man urged.

Al­so speak­ing on the crime sit­u­a­tion was Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, who said he gets too many com­plaints about con­trac­tors be­ing black­mailed and projects be­ing shut down be­cause of the crim­i­nals.

“I do not think peo­ple un­der­stand that it costs the tax­pay­ers more be­cause projects are de­layed. In some cas­es, we have to pay the po­lice ex­tra du­ties and a lot of that cost is brought back to the min­istry,” Sinanan said.

“So, I have spo­ken to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty about it, and it is some­thing we are pay­ing a lot of at­ten­tion to. The min­is­ter has giv­en me clear di­rec­tives and he has tak­en that up as a se­ri­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to stamp it out, but we need the help of some of the con­trac­tors.

“I know it is easy for me to tell you not to pay the pests, but I know of in­stances where your em­ploy­ees are threat­ened, jobs are shut down, but we are work­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to as­sist you with that.”

The min­is­ter, in fact, ex­pressed grave con­cern over the ex­tra du­ties that po­lice of­fi­cers have to per­form for con­trac­tors to move equip­ment due to the crime sit­u­a­tion.

“I have spo­ken to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter about that and what we are try­ing to put in place is some­thing where con­trac­tors can move their equip­ment, be­cause a lot of you have your se­cu­ri­ty firms and pri­vate ve­hi­cles. We would put some­thing in place where you would be able to move your equip­ment, at cer­tain times of the day, with­out hav­ing to utilise the po­lice to do it. What we ask of you is that the equip­ment not be moved dur­ing the peak pe­ri­od to avoid traf­fic is­sues,” Sinanan high­light­ed.

Pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion

Mean­while, TTCA pres­i­dent Glenn Ma­habirs­ingh said af­ter 55 years of the as­so­ci­a­tion ad­vo­cat­ing for pro­cure­ment re­form, it was pleased that it had been passed. How­ev­er, he quick­ly re­mind­ed all stake­hold­ers that the work does not end with the act be­ing pro­claimed.

“We share a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that the goals and spir­it of the act are achieved and that its pro­vi­sions and reg­u­la­tions con­tin­ue to be im­proved to the ben­e­fit of T&T as a whole,” Ma­habirs­ingh said.

“And yes, our ac­tions, our per­for­mance, our de­ci­sions must stand up to scruti­ny and to the ap­pli­ca­tion of the con­cepts that un­der­pin the act - those of ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, val­ue for mon­ey, ethics, ef­fi­cien­cy, fair­ness and com­pe­ti­tion.”

He thanked the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) pres­i­dents over the years for bold­ly lead­ing the charge to en­sure the act was pro­claimed.

In this re­gard, Ma­habirs­ingh said the TTCA has pri­ori­tised train­ing in all as­pects of the con­struc­tion sec­tor to guar­an­tee a sup­ply of well-skilled, ap­pro­pri­ate­ly trained, hu­man re­sources, who can en­sure the ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery of high-qual­i­ty in­fra­struc­ture - be it roads, bridges, cul­verts, schools, hos­pi­tals, or com­mer­cial build­ings.

He not­ed that the con­trac­tors are al­ready thrilled with one pro­vi­sion of the new act - Clause 27:1 states that no lat­er than six weeks af­ter the ap­proval of the na­tion­al bud­get, the procur­ing en­ti­ty must pub­lish on its web­site or oth­er elec­tron­ic for­mat, in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing its planned pro­cure­ment ac­tiv­i­ties for the fol­low­ing 12 months.