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$41.6M Mon Repos well incomplete 5 years later
-Livestock Authority demands refund from BK Int’l or new one drilled
A $41.6M water well at Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara, that is incomplete after more five years, has pitted two state agencies against each other.
The Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) now wants the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) to either oversee the drilling of a new well or the recovery of the money.
The contract was signed between GWI and the contractor, BK International, for commencement on February 20, 2012. It was supposed to have been completed four months later on June 20, 2012.
Today, grass has overtaken the area behind the GLDA offices, where works were done, and despite demands since last year, it appears that GWI is unwilling to resolve the matter, according to correspondence seen by Kaieteur News.
Already, of the $41.6M earmarked for the project, BK International has pocketed $33.98M or just over 80 percent of the monies. BK is owned by Brian Tiwarie. The company is a major contractor for Government but has been under fire for a number of multi-billion-dollar contracts.
GLDA, under a new Board of Director and management, on February 16, 2016, wrote Orin Browne, GWI’s Water Resource Manager, recommending the well be abandoned and that BK drill another in a location to be designated.
“The GWI should enforce the clauses within the contract that allows for the successful completion of a well or an outcome that will see the recovery of funds paid,” GLDA’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Richard Cumberbatch, wrote in the letter.
GLDA insisted that it will not take the responsibility to terminate the contract as GWI is the employer, according to the contract.
“The GLDA will not accept the well in its present output capacity due to the highly fluid nature of the estimate maintenance cycle.”
One year later, on February 10, 2017, GLDA tried again to address the matter. It wrote Dr. Hector Butts, Finance Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, beseeching his intervention to resolve the matter of the well. The letter was sent through George Jervis, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Cumberbatch disclosed that in 2011, GLDA received approval for a well in its capital budget, to cost $41.6M. The well was supposed to provide water to the entity’s Hatchery Unit and the Livestock Farm and pastures.
GLDA, in its letter to the Finance Secretary, explained that it decided to vest the monies in GWI to design and supervise the construction of the well.
GLDA said, however, it found issues with the contract itself.
“A perusal of the contract found some issues with the initial commencement of the project. Additionally, there has been some degree of vagueness in the contract document pertaining mainly to the works to be completed, contract date, contract sum when compared with the engineer’s estimate and the drawing designs. Further, numerous designs have been occasioned due to stoppages of work by the contractor and lengthy delays to mobilize.”
Cumberbatch disclosed in his letter to the Finance Secretary that while BK had completed 75 percent of the work; the well had major structural flaws and discrepancies, all of which had financial implications for GLDA, if it is made operational.
GLDA complained that despite raising the matter since 2016 with GWI, it has not yet received a response.
This month again, on June 8, GLDA wrote GWI. This time the letter was addressed to CEO, Dr. Richard Van West Charles.
Cumberbatch stressed that it sent letters in February last year and again this February and that GLDA and its board want the matter to be resolved urgently.
GLDA copied the letters to Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder; Dr. Butts; Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan; and Junior Ministers, Valerie Patterson and Dawn Hastings-Williams.
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