Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal has accused the Government of incurring millions of dollars in cost overruns on state projects, claiming their efforts to cut the initial estimate costs set by the former People’s Partnership (PP) administration have backfired.
Joining the 2025 Budget debate on Tuesday, Dr Moonilal said this was evident by the massive crack that occurred on the then newly paved highway at Mosquito Creek in January 2022.
On January 18, 2022, cracks were seen amid construction on the northbound carriageway of Mosquito Creek. The crack widened over five days. Engineers from NIDCO, AECOM and the Ministry of Works initially assessed the damage, and their findings were cited by Uriel & Associados (U&A).
Noting that he asked the Works and Transport Minister for the report over the course of two years, Moonilal referenced a geotechnical review dated November 29, 2023, prepared by Uriel & Associados at the request of CAF – the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to the document, which Moonilal later published to his social media accounts, design issues related to the removal of wick drains in the construction of the northbound carriageway could have potentially led to the compromised construction.
Although U&A highlighted other technical issues, Moonilal said the wick drains were part of the initial design.
“They changed the design to save money, removed drainage, and it mash up the whole road,” he said.
He said he did not blame the contractors, as they were not responsible for the design. Furthermore, he lamented that this issue will cost taxpayers an additional $64.29 million from an initial $333.35 million, totalling $398.62 million.
“The revised costs does not include the cost of installation of final service. So, the cost of paving is yet to come. That is a further$10 million or so. That is a further amount of money that will come to the 65 million dollars. They stand accused of the highest level of mismanagement and incompetence we have seen!”
Why so much for PF Hospital?
The cost of the Point Fortin Hospital was also questioned by Moonilal, who said the Government spent $500 million more to construct the facility than the People's Partnership government projected.
He said this was odd, especially since the Government spent its first few years in office comparing the expenditure to complete the projects they (the PP government) started.
“When they came in 2015, madame Speaker, they had an approach, and we know their approach – they stopped all major large-scale projects of the Partnership, and they say they have to review. They went to large-scale contractors and said ‘reduce the cost. Anything the Partnership was paying, come in with less, and if you come in with less, we can go publicly and say look they were building a house for $600,000, we are building it for $400,000',” he said.
"Do you know the initial budget of that hospital under the Partnership was 810 million dollars, 810 million dollars? They came in at 1.3 billion dollars. That is 500 million dollars more than budgeted!”
Dr Monilial claimed the Government altered several projects, initially started by the Kamla Persad-Bissessar- led administration, to cut costs to accuse the Opposition of mismanagement of state funds.
