Imbert defends foreign contractors, calls locals 'profiteers'

Keith Rowley wants to know who in the Government is taking advice from UDeCOTT.

The former cabinet minister whose dismissal led to the commission of enquiry into the construction sector and UDeCOTT raised the matter Monday as the Uff commission returned to work and Chairman John Uff confirmed that Government had not approved funding for construction expert Jerry McCaffrey to continue his work with the commission.

Rowley is interpreting that as “a concerted effort to ensure that the slander and the conspiracy against me by Government spokespersons and activists continue.”

Attorney Andrew Goddard, appearing for UDeCOTT, rejected the McCaffrey report as having no value, which prompted Rowley to wonder why Goddard could make such comments on “the content, quality, veracity, effect and the purpose of McCaffrey’s (interim) report.”

McCaffrey’s report cleared Rowley of any wrongdoing in the Cleaver Heights housing project, from which $10 million was allegedly reported missing. Rowley said he is troubled that in the wake of the interim report that McCaffrey has been fired.

The propaganda over Cleaver Heights suggests that Rowley and the contractor was in some kind of collusion but government data and other documents relating to the matter show that everything was above board and that no money was ever missing.

At the inquiry Monday, Works Minister Colm Imbert went on a tirade against contractors, branding them "profiteers" and accusing them of "collusion, overpricing and inefficiency".

Imbert made the charges as he defended the Government’s preference for foreign contractors on its billion-dollar mega projects. The minister complained that the local industry is not up to the job and identified some of the problems in the sector as "incomplete designs, change orders, inadequate supervision, inadequate nominated subcontractors and inappropriate provisional sums".

He said in some cases foreign contractors are able to bid half the price for projects than the nearest local contractors.

“When we look at the evidence what you will find is that when you give a foreign contractor responsibility for both design and construction, the projects are more or less, by and large, successful. The evidence is not so for local design-build consortiums,” he said, adding that in one recent case the local industry's bid for a contract was 100 per cent higher that the foreign company that won the award.

“It’s a 100 percent margin. Anybody looking at this dispassionately would agree that that is pure inefficiency and we just can’t support that,” he said. “A foreigner who has no presence in Trinidad and Tobago, who has a higher mobilisation cost, is able to come in at half the price of the nearest local bidder? There is no explanation for that. I think that sums up the difficulty that we as a Government have in terms of local versus foreign.”

Imbert said the Government stands to save $1.8 billion by simply choosing foreign contractors over locals.

He said when locals handle the job projects are behind schedule and over cost, with design errors and omissions and supervision problems.

“The people of this country deserve delivery of projects as quickly as possible and efficiently as possible and in the most cost effective manner. If we were to adopt the approach as suggested by the local industry then we will spend 100 percent more than we should.

“Speaking on behalf of the Government we wish that every contract in Trinidad and Tobago and every project was done by local contractors. That’s what we would want, that is our wish. But we also have a responsibility to deliver public facilities to the citizens. They don’t care. They want their schools, their hospitals, there police stations, their roads, that’s what they want.”