Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Fail­ure by the Gov­ern­ment to change course in its con­fronta­tion against lo­cal con­trac­tors would wit­ness more im­por­ta­tion of for­eign con­trac­tors and de­sign­ers in the con­struc­tion sec­tor. This was the view of chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) Vic­tor Hart dur­ing his ad­dress at Sat­ur­day's Con­trac­tor of the Year Awards and gala din­ner host­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA). The event was held at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. He said: "The cur­rent chal­lenge fac­ing the con­struc­tion sec­tor is a life and death strug­gle with Gov­ern­ment hold­ing most of the cards.

"The sec­tor will hear more deroga­to­ry state­ments by the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er min­is­ters about the poor qual­i­ty of work by T&T de­sign­ers and con­trac­tors, state­ments that are send­ing the wrong mes­sage to lo­cal in­vestors and to Cari­com where many T&T firms have of­fered ser­vices in re­cent years," he added. He said the com­ple­tion of the work of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to Ude­cott and the lo­cal con­struc­tion sec­tor might vin­di­cate the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) and TTCA's stance and cause Gov­ern­ment to re­con­sid­er its po­si­tion on pro­cure­ment re­form and oth­er re­lat­ed is­sues. Win­ners of TTCA's awards in­clud­ed NH In­ter­na­tion­al (build­ing con­struc­tion); Cap­i­tal Sig­nal (civ­il en­gi­neer­ing); Weath­er­sheild (spe­cial­i­ty) and Trac­mac (pi­o­neer).