Dear Editor,
As day follows night, three things are crystal clear as it relates to the execution of government projects;
(1) they never finish on time.
(2) they always incur significant cost overruns or variations.
(3) each party to the contract blames the other for this lack of performance.
The reasons for this are mostly due but not limited to the following:
• Inadequate construction details in the Bill of Quantities.
• Lack of detailed construction drawings at time of tendering.
• Diverting the mobilization advance to other uses rather than what it was intended for by the contractor.
• Untimely delays in submission of detailed drawings during construction.
• Contractor’s slow work progress because of involvement in other projects.
• Slow responses from consultant for modifications and variations during construction.
• Delays in dealing with progress payments.
• Variations works not quantified before execution.
• Indiscriminate use of the contingency fund.
• Infrequent site meetings.
• Poor standard of work by the contractor that requires extra time for rectification.
• Poor project supervision by the subject Ministry’s Engineer and Consultant.
• Red flags raised long after the fact of time and costly overrun.
This tardiness and underperformance has a lot to do with the dynamics of the parties involved in the government contracts and their dependency on each other vis-à-vis approval of payment, certifying as – built quantities etc.
It might be advisable to have an independent Commissioner of Projects that can monitor these big government projects from the point of the tender documents to project completion to ensure that the defects mentioned above are rectified in a timely manner
The President has identified some mega projects on his to-do list for his first term such as the ; fixed span Demerara River Bridge; shore to gas power generation plant; Ogle to Diamond highway, Parika to Vreed-en-Hoop highway and the bridge to link with Suriname. To achieve a full measure of success it might be prudent to have an independent Commissioner of Projects reporting directly to him to provide the necessary drive and oversight.
Yours faithfully,
Reggie Bhagwandin.
