The Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region Four has informed the contracting firm responsible for the troubled construction of the Supply Health Centre, on the East Bank of Demerara, that its contract has been terminated.
Pauline Lucas, the Regional Executive Officer (REO), has also informed the contracting firm, Navin and Sons, that the region is requesting a refund the RDC for payment for works done on the foundation and columns, which were found to be substandard.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Region said Lucas disclosed that she was moving to terminate the contract during the statutory meeting of the RDC last Thursday.
“I wrote to him [the contractor] outlining the results of the recent tests that were done and indicated to him that he would have to redo the foundation at his own cost. However, he indicated to me that in his view nothing was wrong with the foundation and therefore he saw no need for the foundation having to be redone,” she was quoted as saying.
As a result, Lucas told councillors that she wrote to the Ministry of Communities outlining the situation seeking advice on the way forward. She said the ministry subsequently wrote her and informed that it had accepted her recommendation that the contract be terminated and that the contractor refund the region.
The statement added that the termination of the contract was also recommended by the Senior Engineer and the Auditor General’s office based on tests conducted on the foundation.
A Region Four official told Sunday Stabroek that Lucas has verbally notified the contractor of the termination of the contract and the demand for repayment. The official indicated that the decision should be communicated to the contractor in writing this week.
The project was halted in August after Lucas raised serious concerns over the quality of construction.
Lucas had told the RDC then that the Clerk of Works had informed the contractor not to proceed with casting of the foundation owing to a number of “critically important concerns and issues” regarding the quality of the work being done.
The contractor, however, ignored the directive and proceeded to cast the foundation while erecting columns within a day of casting the foundation, thus further fuelling grave concerns. The contractor later said that he was given approval to proceed by the Engineer.
A detailed report submitted by the Clerk of Works revealed that a number of requirements in the construction of the health centre were ignored, including the complete removal of tree roots and other debris from the site.
The REO said that it was discovered that the casting of the flooring was done without the removal of one major tree stump, thus placing the quality of the work in serious question.
This, she said, had prompted her to halt construction as she sought to have the foundation tested to determine if it is being done in accordance with prescribed construction standards.
“I held a meeting with our Senior Engineer Elon Austin, the contractor in question and Engineer Narain and no plausible answers can be provided for the contractor’s actions so I have written Ministry of Communities asking for advice because the public’s health is of grave and pivotal importance. We cannot construct a building and in a few years’ time it’s falling to pieces because there were several defective and poor work done,” she said.
Following three separate sets of tests, the foundation was declared defective, leading to the Region’s request that it be redone.
The health centre was one of the region’s major projects for 2018.
