Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:10 AM
Feb 11, 2016 Editorial, Features / Columnists
The construction of the Specialty Hospital has once more taken the spotlight. It was hailed as great news when President Bharrat Jagdeo announced it in 2011. Then it hit the news again when Surendra Engineering which was granted the construction contract, failed and was accused of running away with money.
Fedders Lloyd, another bidder for the contract had threatened legal action, keeping the project firmly in the news. Soon after coming to office the Granger administration announced that it was going to shelve the hospital project and use the Indian funding in other sections of the health sector. That was easier said than done. It was Specialty Hospital or nothing. So the project is back on and former President Jagdeo is critical of what is happening.
This situation exposes the absence of continuity whenever there is a change in Government. When the People’s Progressive Party came to power in 1992, it took the American Government to get the incoming President Cheddi Jagan to agree to continue with the Economic Recovery Programme started by the outgoing Desmond Hoyte.
Indeed, the very Jagan had described the Economic Recovery Programme as Empty Rice Pots. The Specialty Hospital Project mirrors the same behaviour. Any project that promises to bring in money is a good project for a developing country. This new hospital was supposed to be at the cutting edge of what is now called medical tourism.
People from overseas would have come to Guyana with hard currency to seek medical attention that was as effective as anywhere but significantly cheaper. The new government was not taken in by promise of the hospital and rushed to scrap it in favour of expansion and rehabilitation of the existing medical clinics countrywide.
Contracts are contracts; agreements are agreements. When a government signs an agreement with a foreign country, that agreement is binding on any new government. So it was that the Indian Government insisted that its money be spent on the Specialty Hospital.
And there is still the contention over the involvement of Fedders Lloyd. The Donald Ramotar administration had argued that Fedders Lloyd was disqualified from the tender process. The Granger administration says otherwise.
Fedders Lloyd, when it submitted its bid, actually submitted two bids, one of them offering a reduction in the actual cost. President Ramotar argued that the contractor could have submitted a bid with the reduced cost rather than seek to kerfuffle the Guyana Government. So an angry Ramotar accused Fedders Lloyd of dishonesty and cancelled both bids.
Fedders Lloyd decided that it was not disqualified a contention that seems to find favour with the present government. The result is that this company has been awarded the contract and should begin working any time soon.
Mr Jagdeo could not resist commenting on the apparent vacillation by the government over the hospital. He recalled that the now people in government had talked about corruption in the construction process and the selection of preferred people.
The government will have its way; Fedders Lloyd will construct the hospital despite the threat of legal action by the political opposition. The amazing thing is that, both sides believe that they are operating in the interest of the people but none has actually asked the people what they think. Do they want a state of the art hospital? Most would answer in the affirmative.
Do they care who builds it? For certain they do not, provided they get a great job for their money. For its part Fedders Lloyd has said that it will complete the hospital with whatever money is available after the Surendra debacle. This seems to be in keeping with the low tender it submitted alongside a proper tender.
It is the same with the Amaila project. The Granger administration was not enamoured with it so it announced that it was scrapping the project. Some foreign government leaned on Granger and Amaila is back on, right down to the road leading to the site.
After years, this road that should have been completed within a year is still only 95 per cent complete but the government has included in the budget, money to maintain the road.
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