Senior Reporter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
Minister of Housing and Urban Development Camille Robinson-Regis says Oropouche East MP Roodal Moonilal thought he was dropping “a bomb” by attempting to mislead citizens into thinking Government will expend millions to correct infrastructural deficiencies at the Trestrail Housing Project.
However, she said the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) will not have to pay a cent on the stalled development in D’Abadie, as the contractor has to fund remedial works.
“The HDC has entered into a situation where the contractor must remediate at his own cost, so this talk that Oropouche East is saying that the taxpayers will have to pay millions and millions of dollars is totally fabricated and totally untrue,” Robinson-Regis said.
She used part of her 2024 Budget presentation to respond to Moonilal, who, on Wednesday, said that the HDC board had failed in its responsibility to oversee the $100 million construction of 110 townhouses.
The HDC said it awarded a contract to Ricky Raghunanan Ltd in 2019 to construct the townhouses under a design-build-finance FIDIC Contract (PPP).
Moonilal had called for an independent probe into the collapsed project, after reading a CEP Ltd report titled Phase Two Development Design Townhouses dated August 30, 2022. It stated that an analysis found that the foundation for some of the townhouses could not support applied loads. Therefore, there was a need to improve existing soil conditions.
Moonilal claimed CEP had told HDC it could demolish townhouses or inject or grout the soil. The report also said based on the visual inspection of concrete samples, there was a need to reinforce the first-floor slabs, and there were areas where the contractor used galvanised sheets with no reinforcing bars, no ring beams and rebars in concrete in the bedrooms.
But Robinson-Regis explained that HDC’s tender committee agreed to engage a contractor for the Trestrail project in October 2019, and its board decided to award a contract in December 2019. The parties agreed to execute the construction of 110 townhouses at the site in January 2020. Work began in October 2020 and HDC’s executive management conducted a routine site visit a month later.
In July and August 2021, the HDC issued notices and correspondence to the contractor for various breaches, instructed compliance with the contract and ordered correction of structural issues.
In September 2021, the HDC mandated the contractor to submit a modified programme and supporting report outlining a revised method to expedite the works. On November 3, 2021, the contractor submitted its remedial retrofit methodology and design, she said.
On January 5, 2022, the HDC hired CEP to assess 11 townhouses. When CEP submitted its reports in February and March, the HDC notified the contractor of a work suspension. CEP submitted another report in August with a methodology for remediation.
In September, the HDC submitted the CEP report to the contractor and notified it in November that failure to recommence work would result in a contract termination.
The contractor submitted a remedial work methodology in December, Robinson-Regis said. She said the HDC informed the contractor it would inspect every unit on the site, and there was an agreement to provide an update.