PM: Overbids have ‘no chance’ at job

UNDER the PNM administration, the awarding of contracts allows for “competition at work,” in that taxpayers benefit, because the contractors now know that if the contract costs $100 million and they bid $300 million, they do have not a chance of getting the job.

The Prime Minister made these comments today while delivering the feature address for the sod-turning ceremony for packages 5D, 6C and 3A of the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway to Point Fortin.

The event was held at La Retraite Road near the Guapo Police Station.

“You now have to ask yourself, what system was at work to allow a contractor who should have been bidding around $100 million to bid $300 million and get the contract? And then a bell would go off that it is that extra $200 million was not just for the contractor, but for the people who facilitated the award of $300 million,” Dr Keith Rowley said.

Namalco is responsible for the 5D package at an estimated cost of 285.5 million, General Earth Movers for 6C at $161.8 million and Lutchmeesingh Transport for 3A at $272.4 million.

The Prime Minister said even as he welcomed all the contractors who were successful in the competitive bidding process, questions are being asked.

“Why is the Government awarding contracts to contractors against whom allegations of wrongdoing have been made?

“Under this Government, the contracting process is different. You bid – you are allowed to bid – because you have not been convicted by a court. They have not been charged for corruption – and I don’t want to add ‘yet.’”

Rowley gave a historical perspective on the controversial project, which started in 2012, at an estimated cost of $7 billion, under the previous administration. This was the largest contract awarded by a government in the history of TT to one contractor, and was negotiated in four days.

After the PNM won the general election, it fired OAS Construtora of Brazil, which had gone bankrupt, and hired local contractors to continue the work.

Among the officials at the event were Works and Transport Minister, Rohan Sinanan; Point Fortin MP Edmund Dillon; La Brea MP Nicole Olivierre; Point Fortin mayor Abdon Mason; and chairman of NIDCO Herbert George. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

The Prime Minister bashed the UNC for its attitude to the controversial Civil Asset Recovery and Management and Unexplained Wealth Bill 2019. This bill seeks to establish a civil assets agency and part of its mandate will be to probe unexplained wealth.

He blamed Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, saying she was behind a petition over the weekend to try to prevent the law from passing in the Lower House. The petition, he said, aimed to persuade the “poor man and the small man” that the bill was aimed at them and that they stood to lose their personal assets,

“Not so at all. It is for those who have been raping the treasury at the expense of the poor man,” Rowley said. “I am so proud of TT because, in the face of that onslaught on the weekend, John Public stood firm that we want that legislation.”

Rowley said Persad-Bissessar was “trying to recruit the population” to prevent the Government from passing it.

“We had the votes to pass it. It required a simple majority. The main amendment they were driving was for it to require a three-fifths majority. If we had agreed to that, under their nebulous legal interpretation, and allowed a three-fifths majority to apply, then they would have blocked it.”

Rowley said some members of the opposition bench did not know that they would vote for it and some stayed far from the Parliament.

“Some people did not say a word in the debate, but they knew that the bill was going to pass, and that the population was supporting it.

“And after it passed, they were taking credit for it, because: ‘I changed the colour of the page, and I made the amendment, and the amendment is what made the law.’

“No, sir. They did everything possible to prevent the bill.”