$100M needed to correct problems caused by shoddy works on 10 EMBDC sites

Government will have to invest about $100 million for remedial water works at 10 Estate Management and Business Development Company Limited (EMBDC) sites as a result of shoddy workmanship by private contractors engaged by the former Manning PNM administration.

The CEO of the Water and Sewage Authority (WASA) made the disclosure Wednesday during a tour of one of the EMBDC sites in souther Trinidad.

Ganga Singh said checks revealed that water and electricity lines were running parallel to each other underground. He also said contractors used materials condemned by WASA more than 20 years ago. In addition many pipes were leaking.

The government has already spent more than $429 million on the projects undertaken five years ago, on some 4,700 residential lots on former Caroni (1975) Limited lands which should have been delivered within 15 months. None of the lots has been delivered. 

Singh told reporters, “To do this remedial work, it would naturally incur additional costs. We have projected on the ten sites, for the water sector, approximately $100 million.

“Once more, the taxpayer is called upon to bear the burden because of the incompetence of the private sector contractors and the lack of supervision by the EMBDC in the last regime.”