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Fabrication of Hope Canal Sluice Gates

Sep 11, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
In a SN Article of Sept. 8, Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Ramsammy has confirmed that fabrication of the gates for the Hope Canal sluice was not part of the contract awarded to Courtney Benn Construction (CBC). However, once the gates were delivered on site, it would be the responsibility of CBC to install them in accordance with the drawings and specifications.
According to Minister Ramsammy, fabrication of these gates was done by the Guyana National Industrial Company (GNIC) under a Govt. contract and with the objective to prevent CBC getting skewed and be allowed to concentrate its focus on building the infrastructure to house the gates.
Unfortunately the Govt. never delivered the gates to CBC during the life of the contract which expired last year, and as of today, the gates are still with GNIC. Much contract work remains to be done before the sluice becomes operational, but CBC must be “smiling all the way to the Church” as it has been let off the hook for its failure to complete its contractual obligations within the specified time and it now has all the time in the world to complete the project without any penalty hanging over its head for liquidating damages. CBC also has good grounds to recover the additional costs, with mark-up now being paid for extra labour, overtime and equipment to get the sluice completed by the December 31 deadline at Govt.’s directive.
This is so because the Client (Govt.) was obligated under its agreement to provide CBC with the gates within a reasonable time frame to enable CBC to install and test them. Govt. however, has failed to execute its part of the contract and as the Client it will have great difficulty recovering liquidating damages from CBC for failure to complete the project within the specified time, since it was a party to the problem to begin with and therefore there has to be shared responsibilities for failure to perform.
The design of these gates appears to have a number of flaws. Firstly, the steel gates will rest on steel plates anchored on the weirs’ concrete surfaces. Without a suitable sealing material separating them, leakages can be expected when the gates are closed against differential water levels. Secondly, the gates will be opened by remotely controlled electric motors. Having regard to friction between the gates and their guides and hydraulic pressures on them, once the gates are opened would their weight be sufficient to close them without assistance from counter forces? Thirdly, provisions have not been made for stop logs in-case the sluice needs to be de-watered for repairs/servicing.
The decision to split-up the work on these sluice gates was not only shortsighted but will cost the Govt. dearly as construction problems are likely to crop up everywhere with costs continue soaring. Instead of CBC bearing the risks and keeping costs within the tendered sum for this project, responsibility for construction of a critical part of it has now been shifted to the govt. who will have to find solutions to the many construction problems likely to pop-up with respect to installation and operation of the gates, fabricated by others.
There was no need for the Govt. to be involved in buying stainless steel for the gates and then finding Guyana National Industrial Company to fabricate them when CBC had the competency to do so. It was therefore disingenuous for Minister Ramsammy to state that he did not want CBC to get skewed but focus its resources on building the infrastructure to house the gates. There is no doubt that given the mandate, CBC would have probably got a better deal in fabricating the gates than the Govt. did and had it completed in record time.
Completion of the sluice does not make the Hope Canal Project (HCP) functional. For this to be, so many non-HCP works will have to be completed, such as the channel yet to be dug from the sluice to the ocean, tie-ins of the abutments of the sluice and head regulator with their existing dams and much, much more. Additional funding to the $3.6B earmarked for project will have to be provided, and no one knows what the final cost will be. Will additional funding be provided to complete HCP to allow flood water from the East Demerara Water Conservancy to flow freely into the ocean by December 31? Let’s all hope so.
Charles Sohan

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