WASA to pay $100 million by wednesday!?!?!

[zoom rader]

heads gonna roll in wasa?
who were the decision makers who screwed this up and cost the TAXPAYERS 100M TT?

PNM

[rfari]

heads gonna roll in wasa?
who were the decision makers who screwed this up and cost the TAXPAYERS 100M TT?

PNM

Coated for stupidity

[zoom rader]

heads gonna roll in wasa?
who were the decision makers who screwed this up and cost the TAXPAYERS 100M TT?

PNM

Coated for stupidity

Who signed the Deal?

[rfari]

heads gonna roll in wasa?
who were the decision makers who screwed this up and cost the TAXPAYERS 100M TT?

PNM

Coated for stupidity

Who signed the Deal?

you ask the wrong question. who breached the contract?

if there was proof of irregularities, there would have been more than enough grounds to terminate the contract. but obviously that didn't happen because here we are as tax payers having to foot the bill for a bad decision taken by one of the pp's spoon fed crew. why? because of pure badmind

[5onDfloor]

heads gonna roll in wasa?
who were the decision makers who screwed this up and cost the TAXPAYERS 100M TT?

PNM

Coated for stupidity

Who signed the Deal?

you ask the wrong question. who breached the contract?

if there was proof of irregularities, there would have been more than enough grounds to terminate the contract. but obviously that didn't happen because here we are as tax payers having to foot the bill for a bad decision taken by one of the pp's spoon fed crew. why? because of pure badmind

^THIS!!!!

[nervewrecker]

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/WASA-ordered-to-pay-100m-205040061.html

WASA ordered to pay $100m
Court of Arbitration rules in favour of Israeli firm

By Asha Javeed asha.javeed@trinidadexpress.com
Story Created: Apr 27, 2013 at 9:46 PM ECT
Story Updated: Apr 27, 2013 at 9:46 PM ECT
The Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) has until Wednesday to pay about $100 million to Israeli company Merhav Mekorot Development Trinidad and Tobago Limited (MMD) after it was defeated in an almost two-year-long arbitration on April 17.

The judgement was handed down by Richard Fernyhough QC on behalf of the International Court of Arbitration in London, England. He ruled that WASA has to pay the consortium US$15,771,468 no later than 14 days after the judgement was delivered and dismissed all of WASA’s claims and counterclaims on the matter.

The payout is exclusive of the legal costs the water company incurred during the dispute, having hired Start Isaacs QC and Seenath Jairam SC to handle the matter.

MMD was a special purpose company, incorporated for the sole purpose of executing an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for WASA.

It is owned by Merhav Limited and Mekorot Development and Enterprise Limited (MDE), which are both incorporated in Israel.

The EPC contract was signed on April 12, 2010, but was never implemented. The arbitration arose from disputes between both parties over the signature, completion and putting into effect of an agreement made between the parties.

The EPC deal, which was valued at US$100 million, was brought to national attention by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar when she was opposition leader, three days before the May 2010 general election.

Persad-Bissessar had queried why the deal was being done so close to a national election and urged then Prime Minister Patrick Manning to halt it.

To finance the arrangement, the Government had proposed floating a $1.3 billion bond with Citicorp.

After the People’s Partnership Government assumed power after May 24, WASA’s then chief executive Andrew Smith resigned and was replaced by now Environment and Water Resources Minister, Ganga Singh.

Singh opted not to pursue the EPC deal negotiated with MMD, which triggered the arbitration.

In his 79-page judgement, Fernyhough observed that WASA had had a relationship with MDE since 2009 when it worked alongside the company during the drought of that year.

Subsequently, MDE and WASA signed a memorandum of understanding where “it was agreed that MDE would be entitled to form a consortium with Merhav for the execution and implementation of water projects in Trinidad and Tobago”.

After it had received a “Letter of Undertaking”, the company was given two months--March-April 2010--to complete specified interim works.
“It is important to record that these works (which, at the hearing, were described as the “IPSP Works”) were carried out and completed satisfactorily and Merhav was paid in full for them,” noted Fernyhough.

In his judgement, Fernyhough detailed a timeline from which the former WASA board, chaired by Shafeek Sultan-Khan, awarded the EPC to MMD in April 2010 and how the election and change of Government affected the contract from being implemented.

Fernyhough noted that after a new board of governors was eventually appointed in December 2010, WASA was no longer interested in pursing the agreement with MMD. The water company subsequently sent a letter to MMD saying that the EPC “was not binding in any way”.

“On the facts as I see them, had the project gone ahead, WASA would have kept its expenditure to the minimum figure of US$100 million (as provided in Annex 2). This is because, after the change of government, for whatever reason (and this was never explained or even explored in evidence) the new administration was not at all keen on the terms of the EPC contract. That is why it, in effect, repudiated it from the outset. But, against this background, had the contract not been repudiated but gone forward, I think it is likely that WASA would have limited the spend to the contractual minimum of US$100 million,” the judgement noted.

“Having read the contemporaneous documentation put before me, in the period March 2010-March 2011, I am quite satisfied that, during this period, MMD did everything in its power to attempt to revive the moribund EPC contract and, when it failed, to attempt to persuade WASA to award different, and possibly, smaller contracts to MMD with the same overall objective, vis to improve the water supply in Trinidad and Tobago,” the judgement stated.

In March 2011, WASA issued a $1.3 billion Government-guranteed bond which was underwritten by Citicorp Merchant Bank, which was a similar facility which the former administration had hoped to utilise to capitalize on the MMD project.

The 20-year, zero-coupon bond stated that it was to fund a One-Year Action Agenda of the Ministry of Public Utilities which includes infrastructure development water projects.

After the Cabinet re-shuffle of June 2012, Singh was moved from WASA and given his own Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. WASA was moved from Public Utilities to that Ministry.

In March 2013, Singh boasted that WASA had collected $836 million in revenue for 2012, which was an increase of $209 million over 2011.
WASA recently signed a $3.8 billion Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) loan which will be used to implement a five-year programme, with the construction of two new wastewater treatment plants in Malabar and San Fernando.



guess water rates will be going up soon....

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/STO ... lmob=y&c=n


NOMINATION TIME: People’s National Movement (PNM) Political Leader Dr Keith Rowley, left, signs his nomination papers yesterday at Balisier House. Looking on is general secretary Ashton Ford.

Super Industrial Services (SIS) has been awarded  a billion-dollar contract for the Beetham Wastewater Treatment Plant by State-owned National Gas Company (NGC) even though that company’s bid was $400 million more than the other bidder on the project, Atlatec.

This claim was made yesterday by Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley at a news conference at Tower D, International Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain.

And Rowley wants the President to intervene in this matter.

In response to questions, he said this is a matter that should attract the attention of President Anthony Carmona. 

“This is preparation and execution by way of the rape of the Treasury,” Rowley said as he cited the President’s inaugural speech. 

“If the President is to be true to his commitment to the people of Trinidad and Tobago, he must ask the Government for an explanation about this development. I am calling on the Government to stop the award of  this contract,” Rowley stated.

The project involves the building of a plant to treat the polluted water to make it usable at Point Lisas.

Rowley charged the bidding process was conducted “to drive away” 14 out 16 contractors who were interested in submitting tenders. 

Some of these contractors, he said, were “world renowned” such as Vinci Construction, Kentz Caribbean and Latin America, GLF Construction,  Technologica Intercontinental, Aqualia Infrastructuras, Societe Generale Des Eaux, Doshion Private Ltd, Universal Projects Ltd, Seven Seas Water (Trinidad), AST Clean Water Technology, Earth Company Ltd and GE Water, among others.

Rowley said the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) handed the project over to NGC. He said when the request for expression of interest went out, many companies were interested. 

The request went out on September 9, 2013, a project briefing was scheduled for September 25 and tenders closed on October 28. 

The Opposition Leader said it was highly unusual to have a period of seven weeks between the request and the close of tender for a billion-dollar project. He said the Opposition’s investigations with reputable firms revealed a proper response to a request such as this required preparation of three to four months.

Rowley claimed the companies asked for an extension which WASA refused to give, leading many of them to lose interest. 

He said WASA later “purported to give an extension” but by then 14 of the 16 contractors originally interested pulled out “because they came to the conclusion that the process was questionable”. 

The only contractors to submit a bid were Atlatec and SIS. Atlatec is a subsidiary of Mitsui and Toyo Engineering of Japan. 

Rowley said during the Carnival week “when the country was gyrating”, NGC advised Atlatec via letter on February 27, they had failed in their submission which meant the last company standing was SIS. 

“And this was the intention all along,” he said. “We now have to conclude that the preferred bidder is SIS ... which has grown like a cat in the last four years,” he said. 

He claimed, however, SIS’s bid was $400 million more than Atlatec’s. 

Rowley said the Government is prepared to ignore the fact that one company can do the job for $400 million cheaper and give the contract to another company whose bid is $400 million higher.  

Rowley noted SIS has been given a number of contracts, including a $240 million contract to build a transport hub in Central Trinidad.

He added that WASA and NGC began to advertise the project last week as part of the “Vaseline’’ for one of the most cynical actions for the rape of the public purse. 

Rowley said he wanted to know what were the significant variations in the two bids that led to the difference in the bid price. Rowley said it was a classic case of bid- rigging

On the Prime Minister’s trip to China, Rowley said this Government which has spent over $300 billion was now dependent on the Chinese for an “emergency loan” of $5 billion in time to execute projects by March 2015, which happens to coincide with the height of the run-up to the 2015 election. 

He said many of these projects were not under parliamentary control of the national budget. “This is the feeding trough where the Government expects to fund its election campaign with a profligacy never before seen in Trinidad and Tobago,” he said. 

Contacted by text for a comment yesterday, Environment and Water Resources Minister Ganga Singh responded: “That matter is for NGC.”

NGC: Contract awarded to consortium

NGC’s vice president, Human and Corporate Relations, Cassandra Patrovani Sylvester, said last night the contract was awarded to a consortium of companies which include Foster Wheeler, SIS and Hyflux. 

She stated SIS submitted the tender package on behalf of the consortium. The bid was approximately US$167 million (about TT$1 billion), she said.

Patrovani Sylvester said 14 companies bought tender packages and requests for extensions were accommodated. She said the criteria used for evaluation of bids were technical ability/experience and cost. “It should be noted that of the two companies which submitted tender packages, one company quoted approximately US$95 million (TT$600 million) with numerous variables proposed that would have eventually escalated the costs,” she stated. 

In an apparent response to the allegations of bid-rigging made by Opposition Leader Keith Rowley, Patrovani Sylvester described the tender evaluation process, saying the tenders submitted were evaluated by a cross-functional team of six experts from both the National Gas Company and National Energy. “The team, following a thorough review, site visits, etc, made their recommendation to NGC’s Management Tenders Evaluation Committee (MTEC). The MTEC reviewed the recommendations of the cross-functional team and made their own recommendation to the NGC Board Tenders Committee,” she said. 

The Board Tenders Committee subsequently reviewed the submission and forwarded their recommendations for award to the NGC board of directors, following which the final award would have been made, she added.

[Rory Phoulorie]

What's the surprise there? Roop Chan Chadeesingh (Chairman of NGC's Board of Directors) used to (still does???) provide legal counsel to SIS, and SIS provides services to Roop Chan Chadeesingh's construction projects.

[rfari]

Was waiting for this to drop. In 2010 they shelved the conceptual design for no reason. Iirc it was tendered as design-build based most likely on the early draft. Food hadda eat yes and reelection campaign hadda pay for itself somehow

[bluefete]

reelection campaign hadda pay for itself somehow

THIS!!!!!

[PapaC]

This statement is brilliant.. Sig worthy if I do say so myself.

He added that WASA and NGC began to advertise the project last week as part of the “Vaseline’’ for one of the most cynical actions for the rape of the public purse. 

[nervewrecker]

Is just me or anyone else notice kams was in uproar over the pre election deal but have no problem dishing out one to whom is accused of having their pockets filled by pp.

Instead of honoring the deal they preferred payout a huge chunk of taxpayers dollars to mekorot due to pure badmind. Anyone knows what mekorot specialized in?

What sis specialized in? Why couldn't they just honor the prelection contract? Or was it because its a pnm contract?

[rfari]

pp/unc never had tnt's interest at heart. meanwhile pp sheep cyar talk. they pushing the 'we' vs 'dem' wagon for elections

[crash dummy]

When I was at WASA to sit on those kind of tenders used to be the WORSTTTTTT. Every man jack braksing (including me) from being the relevant rep. Once you hear certain company names, you don't want to be involved. Some of them bound to end up in the papers - case in point.. as above. Then they look for some small fry like myself to blame

[nervewrecker]

What ironic is how growley roaring all now but not one person from the pnm camp uttered a sound of protest / disapproval when pathos signed the deal.

[crash dummy]

What ironic is how growley roaring all now but not one person from the pnm camp uttered a sound of protest / disapproval when pathos signed the deal.

What should they have protested and said? I'm a bit confused.

[nervewrecker]

Exactly, just like the 2ba crew right now. Not a word of disapproval.