Several high-profile projects yet to be completed by the Government will come under focus by the now fully-implemented Procurement Act, according to former lecturer in the University of the West Indies’ Civil & Environmental Engineering department Derek Outridge.
He said in addition to projects yet to begin, the likes of the Solomon Hochoy Highway and Churchill-Roosevelt Highway Extension Project to Manzanilla by NIDCO; the Sangre Grande Hospital Project and Port-of-Spain Hospital Central Block Project by Udecott; and Valencia to Toco Road Expansion by Pure will all fall under the law.
Outridge, who is also a chartered quantity surveyor/project manager and attorney, said, “Once the act is proclaimed, all the uncompleted projects that are ongoing, as well as any new projects that are to come, have to comply with the procurement law.
“What is completed is done. It doesn’t fall under the legislation. It is the uncompleted contracts. Everything will have to be in accordance with the uncompleted project in accordance with the procurement law. Now that it has been brought to the Government’s attention, a lot of these state agencies are going to have to pull up their socks, and pull it up very quickly.”
Asked which projects are likely to be on the radar for potential cost overruns, he said there are “millions of dollars in construction claims not addressed by AECOM Group Inc on behalf of NIDCO for the Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension Project, as well as millions in claims still to be addressed by Udecott for the Port-of-Spain General Hospital’s Central Block Project and the Sangre Grande Hospital Project.”
Derek Outridge
Outridge added that while state agencies previously awarded contracts to contractors using their own databases, that will no longer be the case once the legislation is proclaimed.
“Any state entity—which would include UDECOTT, NIDCO, all of them—who receive public funds for projects would fall under the procurement legislation. It would mean an end to these agencies selecting their own contractors from their own databases. They can only select contractors from the Office of the Procurement Regulator’s database,” he said.
The Government has allocated more than $2 billion on infrastructure projects in 2023 for roads and bridges under PURE and NIDCO, drainage and transport projects, information technology projects, as well as WASA projects.
Another $1.9 billion was allocated for primary, secondary, and tertiary education school projects under the Ministry of Education, housing projects under the HDC, as well as recreational projects under SPORTT.
Fazir Khan
COURTESY FAZIR KHAN
Meanwhile, the president of the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry, Fazir Khan, confirmed that all procurement activity from April 26 falls under the OPR’s oversight.
However, he was not confident that the procurement law would bring much scrutiny to mega projects like the Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension to Point Fortin, the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway Extension to Manzanilla, the Valencia to Toco Road, the ANR International Airport Terminal Building Project, and the Integrated Fishing Port and Facilities at Gran Chemin in Moruga.
He said that those projects would most likely fall under the ‘already awarded’ category.
“This retroactive effect was removed in early reviews by the Government. This is why the JCC and other Civil Society groups have been calling on the Government to operationalise the legislation. The road to changing the behaviour around public money starts in earnest now. Most of the capital projects targeted by the 2023 Budget would have been awarded by now.”
Khan, a civil engineer, commenting on which sectors would likely come under the mostscrutiny, said, “Contractors get a large portion of the over $4 billion budgeted for capital projects to be spent by the Works and Transport and Rural Development ministries. This does not include new projects by HDC, nor does it include new schools or repair contracts coming out of the Ministry of Education.”