Renu­ka Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has boast­ed that his Gov­ern­ment saved bil­lions of dol­lars on sev­er­al projects since com­ing in­to of­fice in 2015.

As he of­fi­cial­ly opened the Curepe In­ter­change on Mon­day, Row­ley list­ed sev­er­al projects that were al­ready on the ta­ble be­fore the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions but which car­ried much high­er costs, in­clud­ing the high­way ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin and the Curepe In­ter­change.

On the high­way ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin project alone, Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment was able to save some $3 bil­lion. On the Curepe In­ter­change, he said the Gov­ern­ment saved $200 mil­lion.

When he took of­fice, the Prime Min­is­ter said the ini­tial cost of the Curepe In­ter­change project was pegged at $440 mil­lion. He said al­though he was not an en­gi­neer or a quan­ti­ty sur­vey­or, he "knew" that that cost was too high. He said Gov­ern­ment was able to get that price down to $221 mil­lion.

Re­gard­ing the high­way to Point Fortin project, Row­ley said on­ly one con­trac­tor was se­lect­ed.

Al­though he did not name the com­pa­ny, it is pub­lic knowl­edge that Brazil­ian com­pa­ny Con­stru­to­ra OAS was award­ed that con­tract. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny went bank­rupt in 2015 and the Point Fortin project was stalled.

Row­ley re­called that when his Gov­ern­ment came in­to pow­er, they found the pro­tec­tion clause in the con­tract that would give the coun­try al­most a bil­lion-dol­lar in­sur­ance pay­out from ter­mi­nat­ing the deal was re­moved. He said re­mov­ing that clause gave the bank­rupt com­pa­ny a $921 mil­lion gift. How­ev­er, he said in 2016, his Gov­ern­ment took Con­stru­to­ra OAS to court and re­cov­ered that mon­ey.

The PM said giv­ing the deal to one con­trac­tor had "ben­e­fits" for some peo­ple. He said the ini­tial bud­get for the Point Fortin High­way ex­ten­sion project was $4 bil­lion on the eve of the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion but it went up to $7 bil­lion af­ter the elec­tion. He said his Gov­ern­ment even­tu­al­ly saved some $3 bil­lion on the con­tract from Gol­con­da to Point Fortin.

"We knew and we said that that con­tract could be bro­ken up in­to sec­tions, so as to al­low our lo­cal con­trac­tors to be a part of the ten­der­ing process," he said.

Row­ley al­so dis­par­aged the be­lief that gov­ern­ments "fed" them­selves at the ex­pense of tax­pay­ers and said in the five years since he was Prime Min­is­ter, he held to the be­lief that it was not time for his Cab­i­net "to eat" but for the "tax­pay­ers to breathe."

"I don't care what they say on Face­book, this Gov­ern­ment has set the tone for hon­est Gov­ern­ment in T&T," he said.

He said the cur­rent cost-sav­ing tone on projects meant that oth­er in­ter­changes, planned to ease traf­fic con­ges­tion in the east, would now cost much less than ini­tial­ly bud­get­ed.

"If we had to pay $440 mil­lion for this (Curepe In­ter­change), the next five in­ter­changes would have cost us over $2 bil­lion, cause we would have set the tone," he said.

Row­ley said the im­proved and amend­ed pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion still would not have helped the Gov­ern­ment save over $200 mil­lion on the Curepe In­ter­change project, which was com­plet­ed by Chi­na Rail­way Con­struc­tion.

"If what passed for com­pe­ti­tion then was al­lowed to pre­vail, you could sim­ply have said that the job was ten­dered and the low­est bid­der was $440 mil­lion and there­fore you gave the con­tract to that bid­der and not the one for $500 mil­lion and no­body in T&T would have had a prob­lem with that," he said.

"But some­body would have walked away with $200 mil­lion more than what was re­quired. I am sure that the con­trac­tors in­volved in this project made a prof­it."

The project, Row­ley said came in at a fi­nal cost of $221 mil­lion. Row­ley said that while he was not an en­gi­neer or a quan­ti­ty sur­vey­or he "knew" that the ini­tial project price for the Curepe In­ter­change was too high.

"I knew what was hap­pen­ing and I knew that if the con­trac­tors were told that you are not go­ing to get the job at that price and we are go­ing back out to ten­der, they will give you a price that is far bet­ter," he said.

He said when the Gov­ern­ment want­ed to build the swim­ming pool in Laven­tille, the ini­tial project cost pre­sent­ed by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T was $24 mil­lion.

"I run Ude­Cott so fast from the Cab­i­net with one ques­tion, if you were go­ing to build a swim­ming pool in your yard, with your mon­ey, will you spend $24 mil­lion on it?" he said.

Row­ley said the fin­ished pool cost less than $5 mil­lion.