Notes on civil engineering in Guyana

May 11, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Re letter caption “Notes on the attitudes of some contractors in Guyana” by a letter writer. The letter writer states in his letter. “When an engineer does an estimate in the Government ministry he will use realistic market values to arrive at a rate or in some case past prices.” That statement if true may be a major source of the apparent high and low project pricing problem.
Mr. Editor, I am not an engineer, however during my training to become a Construction Project Manager, I learned that Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings. Civil engineering is traditionally broken into a number of sub-disciplines.
Civil engineering takes place in the public sector from municipal through to national governments, and in the private sector from individual homeowners through to international companies and a Quantity Surveyor is a construction industry professional with expert knowledge on construction costs and contracts.
Services provided by a quantity surveyor may include:
Cost consulting and Cost estimating
Cost planning and commercial management throughout the entire life cycle of the project from inception to post-completion
Value determination
Risk management and calculation
Procurement advice and assistance during the tendering procedures
Tender analysis and agreement of the contract sum
Commercial management and contract administration
Assistance in dispute resolution
Asset capitalization
Interim valuations and payment assessment
Cost management process
Assessing the additional costs of design variations
Production of company pre-qualification questionnaire
If an engineer is not a trained Certified Quantity surveyor he or she may over or under estimate project costs. Thus, it is highly recommended that Certified Quantity surveyor are employed or contracted to prepare construction project estimates.
Lastly, are there many untrained and inexperienced contractors who do not employ competent professionals to prepare professional bids/estimates and manage contracts? Apart from being in construction for many years, what are the requirements to become a construction contractor? Does the person have to have certain training and/or certifications, minimum experience, license and insurance, employ or retain technical professional.
Hemwant Persaud

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