Sheriff St. /Mandela road project...Chinese contractors must correct defects highlighted by IDB - Minister Jaipaul Sharma

Sheriff St. /Mandela road project…Chinese contractors must correct defects highlighted by IDB – Minister Jaipaul Sharma

Dec 01, 2019 News

Minister within the Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MPI), Jaipaul Sharma, made it clear yesterday that Chinese contractor, Sinohydro Limited, must correct all defects on the Sheriff Street/Mandela Avenue road project.

Minister Jaipaul Sharma and his team on the worksite last Wednesday

This comes after the government and the contractor arrived at a stalemate over the continuation of works on one of the main road links between the East Coast and East Bank of Demerara.
The project was greatly criticized by the public and blasted by MPI for many short comings in relation to health and safety issues as well as traffic management failures.
In fact, Sinohydro was warned on numerous occasions to rectify these short comings but had blatantly ignored to do so.
This resulted in the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) suspending payments to the contractor who failed to adhere to the warnings.
Sinohydro retaliated by laying-off a number of workers after it claimed that no payments were made to them in three months.

Excavator used to load one of the generators into a truck for removal. Termination letters of shocked employees began surfacing on the internet and Minister David Patterson moved to explain why the payments were suspended.

A statement was released by the ministry highlighting the major breaches the company had made.
The Ministry had even hinted that it will move forward with the remedial works and deduct the money from the contractor’s pay.
The very next day works were halted and workers were seen packing and removing key equipment despite no official word mentioned from government to suspend works.
Minister Sharma visited the site on Wednesday to assess the situation and a decision was made that if the contractor wants to suspend any works it must first remedy all the defects since it was already paid to do so.

Photo displaying the faulty drainage system.

This includes remedying the drainage issues along the project corridor and putting all the necessary systems in place for the safety and protection of road users.
All this must be done during the period that payment is suspended.
Sharma said that even though they are not working, the contract was not officially terminated and Sinohydro will still have the responsibility to maintain the worksite which no one will pay them for.
Sharma then said that it is better for the company to correct these defects which it deemed not important to fix.
He said the contract holds the company responsible to make sure those systems is in place and as a result part of the funding they received is to implement these systems.
Sharma said that he will meet with the General Manager of the company on Monday to discuss the issue because time is running out.
The IDB will close off its operations on December 13, next, and if the company does not adhere then the suspension of its payments will continue into 2020.