Con­struc­tion vari­a­tions or changes to the agreed scope of works at Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) projects cost tax­pay­ers some $2.4 bil­lion be­tween 2005 and 2017. These in­clude two projects that had to be aban­doned be­cause of struc­tur­al and en­gi­neer­ing ob­sta­cles that were not de­ter­mined be­fore con­struc­tion be­gan.

The news comes even as the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress con­tin­ue to spar over which par­ty made the er­rors while in gov­ern­ment which led to the re­cent flood­ing dis­as­ter at the Green­vale Park, La Hor­quet­ta de­vel­op­ment.

On Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­firmed that pres­sure to pro­vide state hous­ing to a grow­ing mar­ket meant that the HDC was some­times forced to by­pass ap­provals and pro­ce­dures to com­plete projects on time. Row­ley served as min­is­ter of hous­ing from No­vem­ber 2003 to No­vem­ber 2007 and dur­ing that time, two oth­er projects were start­ed and had to be stopped be­cause of the lack of prop­er ap­provals.

On Thurs­day, the T&T Guardian re­ceived a re­port from a for­mer HDC en­gi­neer, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, de­tail­ing a list of projects with mas­sive cost over­runs and vari­a­tions. Some had struc­tur­al er­rors that brought con­struc­tion to a com­plete halt al­though mil­lions were al­ready spent. The en­gi­neer said sites like Orop­une Gar­dens, Pi­ar­co and Green­vale Park were sub­ject­ed to in­com­plete plan­ning and de­signs.

“Hous­ing were built pri­or to com­ple­tion of in­fra­struc­ture works,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port the T&T Guardian re­ceived, large projects con­tract­ed be­tween 2005 to 2010 un­der the Joint Ven­ture mod­el over­ran their con­tract sums by 194 per cent and took eight years on av­er­age to com­plete. The en­gi­neer said the av­er­age cost of a unit un­der these projects was $832,000. He said large projects con­tract­ed be­tween 2010 to 2015 un­der the Fed­er­a­tion of Con­sult­ing En­gi­neers (FIDIC) mod­el mean­while over­ran their con­tract sum by 4 per cent and took four years on av­er­age to com­plete. The av­er­age cost of a unit was $1,057,000.

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, Green­vale con­struc­tion be­gan in March 2007 was com­plet­ed in June 2015. The project was ini­tial­ly pegged at $277 mil­lion for 584 units, but by the time the work was com­plet­ed it cost the HDC some $339 mil­lion.

The project list al­so de­tails the con­struc­tion at the aban­doned Ed­in­burgh Tow­ers in Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, which be­gan in Ju­ly 2007 and re­mains in­com­plete to­day.

The con­struc­tion of the tow­ers al­so be­gan when Row­ley was min­is­ter of hous­ing and has been left aban­doned by the HDC for the past 11 years. It was ini­tial­ly pegged at a cost of $57 mil­lion but in­curred a mas­sive $87.7 mil­lion in vari­a­tions be­fore it was aban­doned be­cause of “de­sign flaws.” Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion re­ceived by Guardian Me­dia, con­struc­tion be­gan in March 2005 and “pro­gressed slow­ly” for six years. In that time it suf­fered from ma­jor cost over­runs and sched­ule over­runs un­til work on it was even­tu­al­ly sus­pend­ed in May 2011.

Even af­ter some $87.7 mil­lion and six years was spent on those tow­ers, by 2011 the build­ings were still with­out the statu­to­ry ap­provals from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) and Fire Ser­vice. They al­so did not have Town and Coun­try ap­proval or ap­provals for de­sign and drainage.

De­spite the mil­lions spent, the tow­ers still do not have stair­cas­es, the roof is still in­com­plete, el­e­va­tor shafts are still to be con­struct­ed and the ex­ter­nal cladding to the build­ing and ex­ter­nal work con­tracts were nev­er award­ed. Ac­cord­ing to an in­ter­nal HDC re­port on that project, while the sew­er is in place the drainage and paving walk­ways and hy­drants are al­so still out­stand­ing.

Sim­i­lar­ly, at Har­mo­ny Hall, Gas­par­il­lo, the HDC be­gan con­struc­tion on 72 town­hous­es and 80 apart­ments be­tween De­cem­ber 2004 and De­cem­ber 2011. How­ev­er, it was dis­cov­ered that some 36 apart­ments were “struc­tural­ly un­sound” af­ter $44 mil­lion was al­ready spent in vari­a­tion costs.

At Cashew Gar­dens, Carlsen Field, Ch­agua­nas, con­struc­tion of 701 units as part of Phase 3C be­gan in 2003 and is “on­go­ing.” Its cost was ini­tial­ly put at $313 mil­lion but in­curred an $18 mil­lion vari­a­tion and there is no no­ti­fi­ca­tion as to why the job re­mains in­com­plete.

Con­struc­tion of 422 homes at La For­tune, south Trinidad, be­gan in April 2006 and is on­go­ing, but be­gan at $85 mil­lion and in­curred a cost vari­a­tion of $175 mil­lion.

Dick-Forde: Things done in ad-hoc man­ner

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, for­mer PNM hous­ing min­is­ter Dr Emi­ly Gaynor Dick-Forde said when she in­her­it­ed the HDC from Row­ley it was “in a mess.” Dick-Forde said be­fore 2010, when she demit­ted of­fice, her per­son­al as­sis­tant vis­it­ed the Green­vale project, which was al­ready al­most com­plete.

“When I took over that min­istry and went to HDC I found things were done in a very ad-hoc man­ner,” Dick-Forde said in an in­ter­view on Wednes­day.

“The HDC did not have a ten­ders com­mit­tee and was not us­ing the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board so it was un­clear how it was buy­ing lands or se­lect­ing con­trac­tors,” she said.

She added, “When I went in No­vem­ber 2007, the HDC was build­ing with­out ap­provals. I got rid of the en­tire board.”

How­ev­er, she ad­mit­ted she was pres­sured to con­tin­ue hous­ing projects with­out ap­provals.

“I was told that every­thing with hous­ing would be shut down if I wait­ed for ap­provals and so we had to con­tin­ue with some of the projects,” she said.

This is not the first time Dick-Forde and Row­ley have had con­flict­ing views over a poor con­struc­tion is­sue re­lat­ed to the HDC. Back in 2014, Row­ley de­fend­ed his role in the con­struc­tion of the now de­mol­ished $26 mil­lion Las Al­turas tow­ers in Mor­vant and Dick-Fode took sides against the par­ty to de­fend her own role in the con­struc­tion of the build­ings. At that time too, Dick-Forde said she had in­her­it­ed a mess from Row­ley, but con­fi1rmed at that time that min­is­te­r­i­al ap­proval was nec­es­sary as a build­ing project con­tin­ued. She had said then that it was not pos­si­ble for the HDC to ap­prove and be­gin con­struc­tion with­out min­is­te­r­i­al say-so and Cab­i­net ap­proval.

In 2014 when Row­ley was Op­po­si­tion leader, the then min­is­ter of hous­ing Dr Roodal Mooni­lal spoke out on the $26 mil­lion Las Al­turas project which had to be de­mol­ished be­cause of struc­tur­al de­fi­cien­cies. At that time, Mooni­lal said the Las Al­turas project rose from $65 mil­li­on to $90 mil­li­on and two tow­ers val­ued at $26 mil­li­on had to be de­mol­ished since geo-tech­ni­cal work had not been done, though Row­ley was a ge­ol­o­gist. At that time, Row­ley had con­firmed that the orig­i­nal Las Al­turas struc­ture was com­plet­ed un­der his watch, but de­nied any knowl­edge of the con­struc­tion of the por­tion that had to be de­mol­ished.

The T&T Guardian on Sat­ur­day asked cur­rent HDC chair­man New­man George about the en­ti­ty’s op­er­a­tions re­gard­ing ap­provals for projects and var­i­ous is­sues with vari­ances, giv­en what PM Row­ley and the Op­po­si­tion have claimed about the Green­vale project and what the T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tion has re­vealed about oth­er projects.

Fol­low­ing was the ques­tion sent via What­sApp af­ter George did not an­swer calls to his phone:

Sir, Dr Row­ley said yes­ter­day (Fri­day) that HDC, be­cause of pres­sure to pro­vide hous­es, would some­times start con­struc­tion with­out req­ui­site ap­provals. Can you con­firm if this is still the case at HDC?

The T&T Guardian al­so asked George whether the HDC had quan­ti­fied the amount it has spent on vari­a­tions for projects.

On both oc­ca­sions, George read the mes­sages on What­sApp, but did not re­spond.