Emphasising that all stakeholders must work together to ensure that quality work is done, President Dr. Irfaan Ali urged communities and government workers to vigilantly monitor contractors’ work all across the country.
“It’s community involvement, local government involvement, regional government involvement, and the professionalism of the engineers and the consultants,” President Ali said.
The President made this statement as he engaged five women journalists this week during the inaugural segment of the ‘In the Seat’ press engagement.
During that engagement, he was quizzed about safeguards in place to prevent contractors from executing shoddy works.
Termination, liquidated damages & blacklisting for errant contractors
The President explained that contracts are executed with the relevant supervisory teams in place. In some cases, engineers from government ministries and agencies are tasked with supervising work done; in other cases, there are independent contractors assigned to this responsibility.
“They have to be vigilant to ensure that quality work is being done,” President Ali posited.
Outside of these workers, the President said community engagement has been crucial. He reminded reporters of the decision to provide communities with the bills of quantities for road works so that residents can also assess and monitor how work is being done.
“They are part of the supervision.
“We have now that community awareness, that people awareness and accessibility to the documents,” Dr. Ali said.
The President’s engagement came a day after he had an early morning meeting with contractors who were behind on their work, and the government workers be it engineers or other technical staff responsible for overseeing the work needed.
In an early Tuesday morning meeting at State House, Georgetown, President Ali met both errant contractors and government workers whose shortcomings may be impacting the execution of some projects countrywide.
The President made it clear that contractors whose projects will be incomplete by yearend and four months or more beyond the completion date will be sanctioned.
