Get work from employed contractors

The National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) does not intend to meet with small contractors who have been lobbying for employment on the billion-dollar Solomon Hochoy Highway extension project.

So said chairman Herbert George who suggested the small contractors, who have been staging protests, seek employment with those major contractors given jobs on the projetc for the highway whose extension runs from San Fernando to Point Fortin.

“Their best bet is to apply to the contractors who are all locals and seek employment. Work has been going one for more than two years now, and lo and behold we have people pounding the pavement,” George told Newsday by phone. “These are huge contracts to be done by huge contractors using TT labour.”

Alastai Ramharack, a small contractor, has been lobbying for work on the billion-dollar project. On Monday at a protest at the entrance gates of OAS Contrutora at Golconda in San Fernando, he renewed calls for Nidco and the Government to intervene.

Last week Tuesday, Ramharack led a similar protest at the same location. The disgruntled contractors displayed a cardboard sign bearing the words “RIP small businesses.” OAS Contrutora is the Brazilian firm which acquired the original contract but which later went bankrupt.

George explained: “Why should we meet with them? We are not doing box drains. Nidco has never agreed to give contractors, large or small, employment. It is not an issue for Nidco.”

“Nidco broke up the project into a series of smaller work packages and allowed local contractors to tender. All contracts were awarded subsequent to competitive tending. Local contractors won all.” At the protest, Ramharack accused officials of failing to acknowledge small businesses and contractors.

“It is worrying because it shows that small businesses and contractors not part of their vocabulary,” Ramharack said. He spoke on behalf of an estimated 150 affected contractors claiming fewer than four contractors employed. He claimed to have spoken last week to a project engineer from Nidco who told him that the issue was out of his hands.

Ramharack said, based on media reports, the Works Minister Rohan Sinanan “did not even bluff and acknowledged us. If his heart was towards people and small businesses and contractors, he would have acknowledged us. But he never did,” Ramharack said.

“If the government, or any party that comes into power, cares about the people, they will make positive decisions that will positively impact communities. We are not seeing that today.”

He called on the authorities to make decisions for both the small man and the people who finance political parties.

The protesters’ next move is to have walkabouts from the OAS headquarters to construction sites at Mosquito Creek and South Oropouche. Ramharack assured the protest was not an election gimmick. Instead, it is a stance for small businesses and contractors, he said.