Ten years on…CJIA expansion project still milking treasury

Dec 06, 2021 News

The Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) (Mike Charles’s photo).

Kaieteur News – As the cost for the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) expansion project continues to climb, more than US$160 million has already been spent on the contract that started off at US$150M.
Even though the Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, had promised that, the total cost for the project will not exceed US$200 million, but that cannot be guaranteed now as the venture is currently a work-in-progress and the PPP/C administration is still pumping money into it.
The CJIA expansion was expected to be a US$150M venture; US$138M financed from the China Exim Bank and $12M from the consolidated fund, taxpayers’ money. The expansion is being undertaken by the Chinese Contractor, China Harbour Engineering Corporation (CHEC).
Since Minister Edghill announced that the spending on the CJIA expansion will not surpass US$200 million–other subcontracts for works that were catered for in the original contract, but which the government now has to spend additional funds to do were signed by his ministry for the airport, and this article will highlight the monies that were spent on the airport expansion thus far.
One of those projects is for the “Construction and Rehabilitation Works of the VIP Lounge and new and existing commercial buildings of the airport at an estimated cost of GY$612,500,000.
Another subcontract project was estimated at GY $23,223,375 for the rehabilitation of the existing roof at the airport. In September the Ministry awarded a contract for US$2M to a local company named Total Solutions for the supply of two additional air-bridges for the long ongoing CJIA project, some US$ 350,000 more than what was paid for the other air bridges.
Additionally, a new runway was commissioned at the airport, complete with an Instrument Landing System (ILS) touted to reduce flights diversion by 90 percent. That aspect of the airport was completed at a cost of GY$518 million.

Minister of Public Works, Bishop Juan Edghill

During an interview on Globespan, the Public Works minister had hinted that more monies will be spent, when he said “Very soon we will be developing the car park…the sewerage system has to be addressed and we are working on that and the water treatment system also.”
According to him, contractor CHEC, had agreed to undertake other works on the airport at no cost to Guyana, and his engineers have estimated the value of the works to be somewhere between US$11M and US$13M.
The airport was expected to be completed by December 31, 2021, but Edghill had said that due to the constraints of shipping as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, works might not be completed until early 2022.
The airport expansion contract was signed in 2011 under then President, Bharrat Jagdeo, and was passed through the truncated presidency of Donald Ramotar. When the David Granger administration took over in 2015, it said that the very defective plan needed adjustments. The then Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, had said that upon assumption of office, the APNU+AFC administration had found that only seven percent of the work was completed. Even with the sub-standard work, former Junior Minister within the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Jaipaul Sharma, had revealed that the contractor spent more on certain aspects of the project than was laid out in the contract.
However, he had not shared whether the contractor spent more than the contract sum. Sharma had also said that the former APNU+AFC government would have decided whether to penalise the company for “breach of contract.”
The previous government had also said that it would not spend a cent more on the project, but that was not the case as a change order seen by this newspaper indicated that the administration made at least one additional disbursement of $6.8M for the “extra time delay and costs for the prolongation of the project” by 807 days. The order also indicated that it was a payment, not for the first, but the third claim made by the contractor. As the country awaits the completion of the project, which falls way below expectations, taxpayers are still obligated to repay a loan of US$138M to China, which forms part of the contract sum.