Region Six Chairman vows to blacklist contractors for substandard work

Oct 24, 2016 News

– says Govt. must take some blame

Even with a new administration in place the accusations of corruption and skullduggery are still being made, and Region Six has not escaped such allegations.
This is worrying to Regional Chairman David Armogan, who made this known at a recent press conference he hosted along with Vice Chairman Dennis Deoroop and a number of other councillors in the boardroom of the Regional Democratic Council, Vryman’s Erven New Amsterdam, Berbice.
Armogan says that most of these negative perceptions are by people with political agendas.
One of the main grouses in Region Six is the awarding of contracts, with many projects not being completed on time or to the satisfaction of residents.
Armogan admits that the engineering department in the region has been found wanting on many occasions.
He also decried the modus operandi of the works committee, tender board and evaluation committee and said that things must change.
He called on works committee members to examine projects before they sign cheques or they would be placed in embarrassing situations.
However, Armogan stated that not all contracts are awarded by the Regional Administration.
He said that a number of contracts are awarded by central government, and the government must foot a sizeable portion of the blame.
He said that many of the contracts being done in the region are awarded by the Central Tender Board, through the government.
“Most times we do not know what is going on. We do not know the scope of work, the bill of quantities, and the startup or finish date. What we know sometimes is that the end product leaves much to be desired. In the end, when these contractors do substandard work, the region gets the blame. But we will not take the blame.”
Waving a document, he said that the time for talk is over and the region has begun writing contractors who fall short of the contractual obligations.
“We will be putting the documents in files so when persons begin getting blacklisted the evidence would be there to prove (why).”
He conceded that contractor Mark Gupta was paid a substantial portion of his money ($5.5M of the 7.1M) for the substandard work done on a revetment at Baracara.
He said that the contractor has to correct the faults to the project before he is fully paid.
Armogan also conceded that Gupta has also received a sizable portion of new contracts, both from the Government and the Region although he has done a poor job of the Baracara Project.
One of the reasons noted is that the Engineering Department is not submitting its findings in writing so that the contractors could be blacklisted.
It was revealed that one particular contracting company has been awarded a large volume of Government and Regional contracts. That firm then subcontracts to others.
In most cases the work is substandard.
The recent case in point is the Republic (back dam) road and The Caracas (High Dam) Roads in New Amsterdam. When questioned, Armogan said those were government contracts and all questions should be directed to one Mr. Corlette, the Government representative in the Region.
Efforts to contact Corlette have so far proven futile.
The same contractor was awarded the contract to construct the $35M school at No.36 village Corentyne.

One thought on “Region Six Chairman vows to blacklist contractors for substandard work”

rs dasai October 24, 2016 at 4:17 pm

And the quality control engineer? Where is she?

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