$4b debt based on fraudulent claims

There will be no more government largesse to the construction industry, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said, as he hit back at a sector demanding $4 billion in outstanding payments, suggesting that some of the claims made by contractors in the past were “fraudulent.”

The winds are changing, Rowley said, and the practices of the recent past, where some contractors had been “encouraged to operate in an environment of happy times where amazing awards and payments were commonplace,” will be no more.

Contractors with inflated claims will no longer take advantage of the taxpayer, as Rowley said the government will allow for an “open, level playing field, with equal opportunity for all.”

“There is the vexing issue of claims and counter claims that cannot just be arbitrarily settled and have cheques issued because some eloquent or tear- jerking contractor goes on television and makes blanket statements about Government delinquency. The claims have to be examined and may or may not be certified as valid,” Rowley told the audience yesterday at a breakfast meeting hosted by the Joint Consultative Council on the Construction Industry at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad in Port of Spain.

But the TT Contractor’s Association (TTCA) did not completely agree. Also speaking at the forum was the association’s president, Ramlogan Roopnarinesingh, who said the debt owed to them by the government was a “major issue” plaguing the industry. The main debtors to the sector, he said, were the Education Facilities Company Ltd (EFCL), which owed between $800m to $1.2b, the Housing Development Corporation, whose debt was $800m, and the Water and Sewerage Authority, which owed $1 billion.

Mikey Joseph, a former TTCA president, also rebutted the Prime Minister, saying that $4b was just an estimate and if other claims, such as the Namalco’s suit were factored in, the figure would likely be higher.

Roopnarinesingh was also concerned that because of a clause in the Limitation of Certain Action Act, a large part of government debt would become statute barred -- or no longer valid since the claim period had expired.

“We don’t expect that the government would resort to such a technicality to avoid paying us, but it would be good to get official reassurance,” he said.

Speaking to reporters after the forum, Planning Minister Camille Robinson Regis said that once the state admits there is money owed it will essentially negate the act, although contractors do still have the option of the court as a recourse. The state has, however, admitted that there is money owed, she said, although she didn’t have the government’s estimate.

Rowley acknowledged that the government did owe contractors “significant monies”, but was sceptical of the $4 billion figure bandied about by the industry, asking if it included a $1.3 billion claim by Namalco (whom he did not name) as well as other claims that seemed “arbitrary and vai que vai.”