Official links procurement to shortage of road-repair contractors
Trinidad and Tobago
THE requirement for contractors to register with the Office of Procurement Regulator (OPR) was linked to a shortage of contractors ready to do road repairs, at a sitting of Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) at Cabildo Chambers, Port of Spain on Wednesday.
The committee, chaired by Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George, interviewed the Secondary Road Rehabilitation and Improvement Company Limited (SRRIC) and its line ministry, the Ministry of Works and Transport (MOWT.) SRRIC CEO Antonio Ross said the company has identified about 300 projects to be done but has only 80 contractors, who have registered with the OPR as required by the recently-proclaimed the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act 2015.
The act in section 26(1) says, “The Office shall establish a database, to be known as ‘the Procurement Depository,’ to which suppliers or contractors can submit information with respect to, among other things, their qualifications and experience.”
Ross, in his opening statement, said the company has a bank balance of $87 million, with an extra $100 million held at the Ministry of Finance.
“We have spent to date approximately $10.6 million on nine projects completed to date.
“For the rest of 2023 we will have a total of approximately $180 million to spent on approximately 300 road repair and rehabilitation projects, of which 190 are ready to go out for tender to bring relief to the citizens of TT directly and in their immediate neighbourhoods.”
Making a plug for the OPR, he said the Procurement Act, as proclaimed on April 26, meant that contractors keen to bid for SRRIC jobs had to register with the OPR.
“There are currently 80 contractors registered in the procurement depository to provide road repair and rehabilitation of which just a handful are either small or medium-sized contractors.
“I would therefore take this opportunity to encourage all contractors to log onto www.opr.org and complete the process to become an approved provider of road repair and rehabilitation services to entities such as the Secondary Road Rehabilitation and Improvement Company.”
Ross said TT has many small road repair projects to be done, but that 80 contractors was “not a lot.”
He said asphalt was a necessity for many projects but he did not view access to this as a challenge, saying TT had 22 asphalt providers, each selling to private contractors at market prices.
Ross said the company had recently been transferred from the Ministry of Local Government to the Ministry of Works and Transport (MoWT.)
He later envisioned the SSRIC deploying 100 contractors to do minor repairs to potholes near their homes, monitored by the SRRIC’s quality control technicians.
Committee member Hassel Bacchus asked if the number of available contractors had been sufficient before the proclamation of the act.
Ross replied yes. He said the proclamation was “a good thing”, but then said “something has to be done” to get more contractors to register at the OPR.
MoWT permanent secretary Sonia Francis-Yearwood thought MoWT’s oversight of both the SRRIC and the Programme For Upgrading Roads Efficiency (PURE) Unit has reduced the chances of any overlap in their roles.
She said out of all roads in TT, 43 per cent were secondary roads, main roads and highways 22 per cent, 18 per cent agricultural access roads and 16 per cent under the Tobago House of Assembly (THA).
Committee member Randal Mitchell said TT had 9,000 km of roads, with 2,135 kn under MoWT and 7,000 km under regional corporations, the Ministry of Agriculture and other entities. He urged a review of the mandates of SSRIC and PURE.
Ross said WASA was legally obliged to repair the under at the site of any underground repairs they had undertaken at submerged pipelines.
Francis-Yearwood said MoWT’s Utilities Unit regularly tells WASA which repairs the ministry aimed to undertake, as she noted that the ministry could for liable for damaging WASA’s pipes, while WASA could be liable if it damaged roads controlled by the ministry.
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