A changed contract for the specialty hospital

Aug 30, 2012 Editorial

At least five major projects are underway in Guyana – the Marriott Hotel, the extension of the Guyana Power and Light Company, the expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, the Amaila Falls road construction project and the construction of the specialty hospital.
Three of these are being undertaken by Chinese contractors, one by Guyanese, and the other by Indian contractors. Each of these projects was announced with a lot of fanfare. When the government announced that hydroelectricity was coming to Guyana the nation was happy. It had seen electricity costs rise astronomically and this increase was passed on to them.
To make matters worse, the generators began to fail and blackouts became a norm. Of course, blackouts hit hard during the days of the People’s National Congress. Things had reached the stage where there was the threat of total collapse. The nation lived on four hours of electricity per day. Slowly things changed.
More recently, the government began to install new engines and generators. Following the installation of a US$20 million generator Prime Minister Sam Hinds announced that blackouts were things of the past. But less than two years later the truth dawned; there was too much wrong with the system. Another system was installed, but even that proved inadequate. Blackouts are still a part of national life.
With this in mind, the nation welcomed the hydro project. However things went wrong from the beginning. The government fiddled with the road contract, seeking to help a supporter and did. Today the nation is unaware of the state of the road, although the government has been pouring money into the project which remains a controversy.
However, the most controversial project seems to be the construction of the specialty hospital. When the then President, Bharrat Jagdeo, announced the establishment of the hospital, he spoke of the benefits. He said that the Indians would man the facility. Guyana’s role was to provide and prepare the lands on which the facility would be constructed.
The parliamentary opposition queried the investment on the land construction and actually cut the budgetary allocation. This caused some concern and led to accusations that the opposition was contra development. For their part, the opposition said that the explanation was not enough.
Now the issue at hand is the award of a tender to the contractor. We find this strange. If the hospital is an Indian facility being constructed in Guyana, then it is the responsibility of the Indians to procure their own contractor.
But this contract was awarded by our National Procurement and Tender Administration Board. We are hard pressed to understand this, since Guyana was supposed to have no role in this aspect of the programme. How this point missed the politicians is beyond reason. A check of early statements by President Jagdeo would reveal that he had said that Guyana was only responsible for the land preparation.
This is what has everyone wondering when the situation changed; when the construction of the hospital became a responsibility of the Guyana Government. A company, Fedders Lloyd Corporation, is challenging the tender, and only because its bid was rejected. The company awarded the tender had worked in Guyana in the past. It constructed the Enmore sugar packaging plant.
The political opposition has reached the conclusion that this company, Surendra Engineering Corporation, had already left Guyana with a problem-plagued facility, and is incapable of constructing the specialty hospital.
This may very well be the case. This situation provides instant recall of the tender for the Amaila Falls hydro project road. Makeshwar ‘Fip’ Motilall, was found to have had no previous road construction experience. The result was that he could not complete the road and left the government with a deeper hole than there was at the beginning.
Now there is Surendra Engineering. Will this company begin constructing a facility only to have the project taken away? Experience has shown that where there are preliminary queries the government should take heed. However, the culture of ignoring queries and challenges seems to be prevailing.

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A changed contract for the specialty hospital

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