Part 4
Introduction
My hope last week was to move seamlessly this week into the big ticket items on the CJIA contract – particularly the runway and the new terminal building. But during the week there has been something of a development, or rather a distraction. Embarrassed at the revelation that the contract provides for some rather overpriced everyday items such as toilet bowls, urinals, sinks and showers and bulbs ‒ separate from the paraphernalia that go with them – the Ministry of Public Works and Communica-tions whose Permanent Secretary signed the contract with China Harbour Engineering Company Limited, went on the offensive to defend the prices set out in 33 pages of the Bill of Quantities which forms part of the contract but which is described as “provisional.” In language that by GINA standards was uncharacteristically moderate, the ministry claimed for the first time that this was a lump sum contract and that persons were being mischievous in isolating for comment any single line item. Perhaps no one bothered to tell the Permanent Secretary that it is unusual for lump sum contracts to have such extensive Bills of Quantities. I think a better explanation is that once President Jagdeo had been told by the Chinese Money Man that US$138 million was available, his government was instructed to work with the Chinese to come up with a contract for an identical sum. To make that possible, they had to find $424,000 toilet sets, $124,000 sinks and $165,000 washbasins.
Two things the Ministry of Public Works does not seem to know, or to care about. Lump sum contracts by their nature require the contractor to submit a total and global price instead of an itemised list of products and services with individual prices. Such contracts are also better suited to simple and small projects where the scope of the work is well defined and drawings are completed up front. That is certainly not the case with the CJIA expansion, and even a cursory review identifies items described as “to be determined.” When China Harbour Engineering Company has done with us, we will be truly finished.
They know that the manner in which the CJIA project is being undertaken does not fit the framework of a lump sum contract. But our Chinese friends know too how to exploit persons of limited experience and even less expertise and under pressure to
