Fran­cis Joseph

En­gi­neer Dr Win­ston Suite yes­ter­day paint­ed a litany of woes at the con­tro­ver­sial Cleaver Heights Project, which is be­ing built by NH In­ter­na­tion­al for the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC). Suite, who was hired by HDC to pre­pare a re­port, was first ques­tioned at length by com­mis­sion­ers John Uff and Desmond Thorn­hill and cross-ex­am­ined by Alvin Ftiz­patrick SC, at­tor­ney for NH In­ter­na­tion­al. In re­sponse to a ques­tion from Uff, Suite said as far as he was con­cerned there seemed to be some lapse in over­sight con­trol of the Cleaver Heights project in the ex­e­cu­tion of the con­tract. First­ly, he spoke of soil ero­sion which threat­ened the ex­ter­nal walls. He spoke about the ab­sence of gut­ter­ings from the hous­es.

This drew a com­ment from Uff who won­dered why they were dis­cussing gut­ter­ings when there were more im­por­tant is­sues. En­gi­neer Win­ston Agard, who sat in the wit­ness box as a joint wit­ness (brought by NH In­ter­na­tion­al), said gut­ter­ings were the pre­ferred so­lu­tion, but they were not put in place as a mea­sure to save cost. He said the soil at Cleaver Heights was hard, so it would take a long time be­fore any house col­laps­es. Thorn­hill asked: "We have seen a litany of woes, what con­clu­sions have you drawn by the per­for­mance of NH In­ter­na­tion­al to HDC?" Suite re­spond­ed: "Some­one should have not­ed that the con­trac­tor changed the rules of the game. There was no polic­ing of the con­trac­tor, whether there was a lack of man­pow­er on the site, but these dif­fi­cul­ties would have been seen and dealt with and not ac­cu­mu­lat­ed.

"There was not enough polic­ing or man­ag­ing. Things seem to have been drift­ing." Suite said he vis­it­ed the project on two oc­ca­sions, the last be­ing on Sun­day, and he no­ticed ero­sion had stepped in. "It is so bad now that the soil at the bot­tom of Mag­no­lia Dri­ve has been washed away. The con­trac­tor ought to have done the work prop­er­ly, even with­out su­per­vi­sion," he said. Agard said those things were mi­nor and could be fixed by the con­trac­tor. He said even if the soil erod­ed fur­ther, the build­ings would not col­lapse. He said the con­trac­tor was aware of the prob­lem.

Agard said he had spo­ken to David Nunez, the project man­ag­er, who said every­one who had gone to him had their prob­lems rec­ti­fied. Suite said own­ers had be­come frus­trat­ed and were re­pair­ing things around the house. He al­so men­tioned that the chain link fence had been bro­ken and van­dal­ism had stepped in. Agard agreed it was easy to break the fence and said a so­lu­tion was need­ed, not just at Cleaver Heights, but through­out T&T. On the is­sue of de­lay, Suite said no one could tell him when the project would be com­plet­ed. As far as he was aware, the con­tract was still run­ning. Uff point­ed out there were sim­i­lar de­lays at the Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza. Hear­ing re­sumes this morn­ing.