An­na-Lisa Paul

An elec­tion gim­mick that will nev­er ma­te­ri­alise. This was how for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal de­scribed Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment that they in­tend­ed to con­struct 204 apart­ments at South Quay, Port-of-Spain, as part of its con­tin­u­ing ef­fort to ad­dress the ur­gent de­mand for pub­lic hous­ing.

On Fri­day, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lion signed the US $71 mil­lion con­tract with Chi­na Gezhou­ba Group In­ter­na­tion­al En­gi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (CG­GC) for the de­sign, build and fi­nanc­ing of four high-rise build­ings con­tain­ing 133 three-bed­room and 71 two-bed­room apart­ments at POS; and five high-rise build­ings con­tain­ing 120 three-bed­room and 115 two-bed­room apart­ments at La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do.

Con­struc­tion is ex­pect­ed to be­gin short­ly, with phase one set to span two years.

It is hoped that by the end of 2020, at least 5,000 low-cost homes would have been con­struct­ed via this project.

Claim­ing such promis­es were “cal­cu­lat­ed” and “po­lit­i­cal in na­ture”, Mooni­lal said, “These an­nounce­ments and fan­cy pic­tures are be­ing tak­en from web­sites and they are trans­pos­ing it. This is re­al­ly an elec­tion gim­mick to show the peo­ple that they will build some­thing in the fu­ture, but there is ab­solute­ly noth­ing in place for any type of mega-de­vel­op­ment that they are speak­ing about.”

Ex­press­ing con­cern that state projects were be­ing done with­out prop­er land ac­qui­si­tion pro­ce­dures be­ing fol­lowed, Mooni­lal point­ed to con­tin­u­ing de­vel­op­ments such as the Kay Don­na Over­pass and the To­co High­way as ex­am­ples of where the au­thor­i­ties had failed to fol­low prop­er pro­to­cols.

He re­it­er­at­ed, “They are just us­ing pic­tures be­cause they have no achieve­ments to show.”

Mooni­lal, re­fer­ring to the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship’s term in of­fice, said, “Where­as we could have shown schools, fire-sta­tions, po­lice sta­tions, hos­pi­tals…they are just go­ing on the In­ter­net and find some build­ings to put up and de­cide, this will be POS and San Fer­nan­do.

“There is ab­solute­ly no plan­ning, no pro­jec­tion, no vi­sion, no source of fi­nanc­ing.”

Mooni­lal said when the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sumed of­fice in 2010, they con­tin­ued with pre­vi­ous plans from the Patrick Man­ning led-ad­min­is­tra­tion which in­volved the re-de­vel­op­ment of East POS and the port de­vel­op­ment at Beetham.

“These are projects that were in the pipeline for many years and we were con­tin­u­ing in that line,” he said.

Mooni­lal ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of mov­ing away from this mod­el, pre­fer­ring city-scape type build­ings.

“I want to as­sure the peo­ple that none of this will hap­pen. It cer­tain­ly can­not hap­pen in 12 months. It is just try­ing to fool the peo­ple in an elec­tion year.”

Con­cerned that Chi­nese con­trac­tors were be­ing en­gaged for this par­tic­u­lar kind of project, Mooni­lal said, “T&T has an abun­dance and sur­plus of home con­struc­tion ex­perts and con­trac­tors who pro­duce high-qual­i­ty work all over the Caribbean. There are sev­er­al of them and it is very dis­turb­ing that the PNM Gov­ern­ment would iden­ti­fy a con­struc­tion com­pa­ny that has been in some trou­ble with the World Bank Group.”

Dis­miss­ing the need to en­gage for­eign con­trac­tors to con­struct lo­cal hous­ing units, Mooni­lal said, “We have the equip­ment, we have the labour force, we have the tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty to do the work. You should en­gage for­eign con­trac­tors in projects where you may not have the do­mes­tic ca­pac­i­ty such as in port build­ing and hos­pi­tal con­struc­tion, cer­tain­ly not in hous­ing.”

“This is a ret­ro­grade and back­ward step that will fur­ther push out lo­cal busi­ness­es, lo­cal labour and lo­cal cap­i­tal for­ma­tion so this is an ex­treme­ly back­ward ap­proach by the Gov­ern­ment to en­gage Chi­nese con­trac­tors for home con­struc­tion.”

He claimed lo­cal firms would not ben­e­fit as the Chi­nese nor­mal­ly bring in their own equip­ment and labour, with pre­cious lit­tle left for the lo­cal mar­ket.

In Au­gust 2013, In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty leader Jack Warn­er pre­sent­ed a pack­age of good­ies to res­i­dents in East POS which in­clud­ed food, land, gov­ern­ment con­tracts, jobs in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, and hous­es as part of his par­ty’s promise to im­prove their lives.

The World Bank Group and CG­GC

On May 29, 2015, The World Bank Group an­nounced the de­bar­ment of Gezhou­ba No 1 En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd, the Gezhou­ba No 5 En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd, and the Gezhou­ba No 6 En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd and their af­fil­i­ates for a pe­ri­od of 18 months.

In ad­di­tion, Chi­na Gezhou­ba Three Gorges En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd and its af­fil­i­ates were al­so de­barred for a pe­ri­od of six months.

Chi­na Gezhou­ba Group Co Ltd al­so re­ceived a Let­ter of Rep­ri­mand which was valid for six months dur­ing which the group re­mained el­i­gi­ble to par­tic­i­pate in World Bank-fi­nanced ac­tiv­i­ties.

The sanc­tions were part of a Ne­go­ti­at­ed Res­o­lu­tion Agree­ment be­tween the World Bank and Chi­na Gezhou­ba Group Co Ltd, and its four sub­sidiaries; name­ly: Gezhou­ba No 1 En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd, Gezhou­ba No 5 En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd, Gezhou­ba No 6 En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd, and Chi­na Gezhou­ba Three Gorges En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd.

The set­tle­ment fol­lows the ac­knowl­edg­ment of mis­con­duct by these en­ti­ties in three bank-fund­ed projects in the Peo­ples Re­pub­lic of Chi­na in re­la­tion to wa­ter con­ser­va­tion, earth­quake re­cov­ery, and flood man­age­ment.

The agree­ment signed be­tween the World Bank and Chi­na Gezhou­ba Group Co Ltd took note of the ex­tent of co­op­er­a­tion that the group and its sub­sidiaries' demon­strat­ed and the ex­tent of proac­tiv­i­ty and re­me­di­al ac­tion tak­en by the com­pa­nies to en­sure that this mis­con­duct does not re­cur.

Un­der the terms of the Agree­ment, Gezhou­ba No 1 En­gi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, Gezhou­ba No 5 En­gi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and Gezhou­ba No. 6 En­gi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed com­mit­ted to co­op­er­at­ing with the World Bank In­tegri­ty team and were al­so re­quired to adopt a Cor­po­rate Com­pli­ance Pro­gram con­sis­tent with the World Bank Group In­tegri­ty Com­pli­ance Guide­lines.