Amaila Falls will end up being the most costly and messy project ever undertaken in Guyana

Dear Editor,

In a press release of Jan 16, Winston Brassington, Head of the Privatisation Unit attempted to justify the government’s action in terminating the contract of Fip Motilall’s Synergy Holdings Inc to construct the access road to Amaila Falls, but this debacle will end up being the most costly and messy project ever undertaken in Guyana.

To ease the impact financial and otherwise, the government needs to set up urgently a competent team devoid of political hacks to review execution of the entire project and make recommendations to get it back on track for completion within set guidelines ASAP.

It is evident that those responsible for executing this project were grossly incompetent in performing their duties, as the contractor was allowed to slip and slide as he struggled to meet set deadlines despite several time extensions. Further, with design changes and over-payments despite claims to the contrary, the government has scant ideas as to what percentage of work is completed and the cost therefore, although supervising engineers were certifying the work done and the Ministry of Finance was making partial payments to the contractor – unless there were deliberate attempts at a cover-up, as requests were made for this information which has not been released thus far.

It is incomprehensible that the government, through its Ministry of Works was not monitoring the project with sufficient diligence to realize that the project was not 40% completed, but as an audit will show, just about 30%.

To resume work on this project would not be easy or timely, since in terminating this contract and in order to resume construction the process has to start all over again, which will inevitably lead to delays in project completion and additional costs as prices have increased for many items since the original contract was awarded, and contractors now have a better understanding of the complexity of the project and the knowledge that the government is now in a bind to get timely completion of the project by a third party. Their bids to complete the project will therefore reflect the high costs for these imponderables.

At this time also the government should be conscious of other ongoing projects and their progress.

These should include, but not be limited to, the Hope Canal and the terminals for the roll-on-roll-off ferry at Parika and Good Hope. Actual construction has not started on the Hope Canal Head Regulator and the sluice across the sea defence, nor excavation of that challenging segment of the canal from the Crown Dam to the conservancy, but large sums of money have already been expended for only preliminary works done on this project.

Therefore a review of money spent against work done for this project should be made available. Completion of the ferry terminals is behind schedule while the ships lie waiting to become operational. Will a penalty be applied to the contractor for the inconvenience being experienced by the people of Essequibo and delay in completing his contract on time?

Finally, the government-sponsored report on the failure of the Good Hope stelling should be made public to enable lessons to be learned and to prevent a recurrence of the mistakes made, in addition to making transparent the steps which have been taken to recoup the costs for the remedial works.

Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan