Contractors who breach their contracts and execute shoddy work are penalised and have monies deducted from their contract fees, with some even having their contracts terminated.
The former Government, however, chose to reward with more extensions a contractor who continuously flouted his contract deadlines, and even abandoned the worksite.
This particular contractor, Surrey Paving and Ideal Engineering, was contracted in May 2019 to do construction work on Hunter Street, Georgetown to the tune of $86.6 million.
Surrey Paving has since received $35 million in total payments, and was supposed to complete the project in December 2019, but according to the 2019 report of the Audit Office of Guyana, the contractor failed to advance the project, resulting in a haphazard and unfinished road.
“The contractor failed to pursue the works diligently, yet the Ministry granted three extensions of time, instead of taking action against the defaulting contractor. Moreover, the completion date was extended from December 11, 2018 to March 13, 2020, then to July 17, 2020, and finally to August 7, 2020,” the report states.
“The third extension was granted even though the Ministry, via letter dated July 9, 2020, highlighted to the contractor that he was performing poorly and that the site was abandoned on December 16, 2019 and construction never began again for five weeks,” Auditor General Deodat Sharma also wrote.
According to the scope of works, the contractor was supposed to construct a pedestrian sidewalk with concrete drains between Front Road and Daisy Street, as well as Water Lilly Street and Mandela Avenue on the eastern side of the carriageway.
Surrey Paving was also supposed to widen the road shoulders, construct a concrete drain at the western side, and construct a concrete road with an asphaltic surface.
A visit to the site by this publication on Wednesday revealed that work has since restarted on the street. This publication understands that the work has restarted under a new company, Vieira 66 Logistics.
Meanwhile, issues have also been raised with the method of procurement used by the former government to engage the previous contractor.
According to the Auditor General, there is no information regarding when the works were advertised, the duration for the submission of bids, or even information on how many bids were received.
“Only the contractor’s form of bid, dated December 20, 2019, was seen. The tender evaluation report was also not presented for audit examination. As such, we could not confirm whether tendering and award of the contract was in accordance with the Procurement Act of 2003,” the Auditor General said.
