Contract terminated, another under review for poor performance on WCD infrastructural works
The contract for one contractor was terminated while the outcome of another will soon be determined since they have failed to meet the deadline for infrastructural works that are currently ongoing at several areas along the West Coast of Demerara (WCD) in Region Three.
“There are two contractors we have under review…With certainty, we are terminating one of the contractors…We have called in the other contractor because the work that he has to do is hampering three others and so we quite simply can’t wait for his timeline for completion, so we have to put mechanisms in place to have it done quickly,” Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal disclosed on Thursday.
These two contractors are doing work in the areas of Leonora and De Kinderen, to the tune of $530M and $242M.
Croal made the revelation after inspecting infrastructural works that are ongoing in five communities on the West Coast of Demerara.
The areas visited are Leonora/Groenveldt, Leonora Phase 2, Stewartville, Meten-Meer-Zorg and De Kinderen.
The total number of investment in these areas amount to $21 billion. These works include the construction of bridges and roads along with the installation of pipelines.
Once completed, it will allow access to 5,000 house lots which were already allocated in the region.
At each site, Croal met and interacted with the contractors and coming out of the discussions, it was concluded that some areas will be completed by the end of December 2023 while others will be done by March 2024.
Contractors also raised a number of issues which are affecting them.
“The contractors also experience their own challenges in terms of materials because they have limitation in terms of the quantity of materials that can be placed on the trucks on the Demerara Harbour Bridge so they had to put their own methodology in place.
“Some of them source sand material from Essequibo while some truck it further away from Vreed-en-Hoop end,” Croal explained.
These issues, Croal said, ought to be taken into consideration by contractors, even before projects commence.
“When you are tendering for a work, there are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration and how you getting your materials to site is one of the priority things you need to know when you are tendering,” he noted.
Contractors were also unable to commence works in some of the areas as they had difficulties in accessing the lands.
“They started late. Many of the contractors could not have started before we give them the go ahead although the contract was signed but we have taken all of that into consideration and that’s how we did our evaluation.
“We have reinforce to the contractors the necessity for completion.”
Over the past two weeks, Croal conducted similar inspections on the East Coast of Demerara and East Bank of Demerara where thousands of other lots were also allocated.
In fact, on the East Bank of Demerara Croal had announced that there are no more house lots to be distributed.
