WHERE IS THE CHANGE OF COURSE?

While the government is calling on everyone to tighten our belts in light of the current international financial meltdown, the question begs, what are individual Ministries doing to ensure that taxpayers get value for money?

Ever since the Public Works Department (PWD) was replaced by the National Works Agency (NWA) some years ago, the new entity has been nothing but a millstone around the necks of taxpayers because they forever refuse to take the cheaper route of maintaining the infrastructure, instead opting to dig money out of taxpayers and increase the national debt by having to rebuild when the unnecessary damage caused by the neglect, is done. Of course when the huge contracts are given out, what follows is the nebulous and perennial “cost overruns” which taxpayers must hug up but for which we can never get a proper explanation.

I am now getting a bird’s eye view of how this agency continues to sink taxpayer deeper and deeper into the mire, despite the Golding’s administration’s promise to change course.

For despite numerous calls last year to the NWA about the deterioration of the floor of the section of the Sandy Gully that runs between Constant Spring Road and Upper Waterloo Road, nothing was done, so naturally Gustav created mayhem.

The result is that the country has been forced by the same NWA and Ministry of Works which had no money to do minor repairs, to fork out millions of dollars more to repair the damage done because of their neglect.

The repairs in this section started in the beginning of February this year and we are told they would complete the small project by the end of the month. The drought conditions made the timetable feasible, but that is assuming that they would get sub-contractors who have a track record of performance. For example, the ability to one start one section, finish it and move to the next!

Instead what that have done is to dig up the entire stretch and leave it untouched for weeks at a time. I can see no other reason for this type of performance except to accumulate cost over runs!

Now, for all intents and purposes, the project seems to have been abandoned mid stream and the gully is in the worse state I have ever seen it in my 27 years of living in the area. For it is now blocked by dirt and garbage. With the water being unable to run freely, stagnant water is being accumulated leading to an infestation of mosquito’s and rats. And lest you dear readers think this is a local problem, it is all of us who will have to hug up the huge cost overruns if the project ever gets moving again as well as possible health costs that will arise as a result of the infestation..

The questions I would like to ask the Minister of Transport and Works are:

a) How does the NWA choose sub-contractors, is it on the basis of their ability to, perform or what they can do for politicians? (I saw a report in the press that the sub contractor (Surrey Paving) is building a airline maintenance school in the constituency of the Minister! According to the news, surrey Paving was doing this free of charge, but who is you think is paying for it?)

2) Does the NWA not put performance clauses in their contracts or are such ideas alien to that agency?

3) Does the Ministry have a time table to change course and make the NWA into an effective agency instead of a drain on the beleaguered taxpayer? If yes, why is there no move to make them into a useful entity that maintains the infrastructure and effectively monitor the contracts that they so freely award?

4)How much “cost over runs” have taxpayers so far accumulated on the repairs of the Sandy Gully?

And I am wondering out loud if the Member of Parliament Mr. Delroy Chuck is happy with the level of work being done in his constituency! And I don’t suppose the opposition has a live spokesperson who monitors the performance of this government ministry!