THE Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region 10 (Upper Demerara – Upper Berbice), on Wednesday denounced the alleged awarding of another contract to the contractor who did faulty work on the multi-million-dollar water distribution and filtration project in the region.
The faulty work required millions of dollars to be remedied and the contractor in question has been identified as UEM Incorporated of Trinidad and Tobago.

Region 10 Chairman, Renis Morian, told reporters that he has heard from all and sundry, including from the Ministry of Communities that the same contractor has been awarded a similar contract to return to Linden.
Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr Van-West Charles, last Thursday, while not definitively pronouncing on the matter, told the RDC that he was in receipt of information, which suggests that the contractor will return to Linden to carry out similar works.
Morian said residents of Linden will not accept this decision and all efforts will be made to disallow the move.

“The RDC categorically denounces such an action, the chairman and Council of Region 10 have unanimously said that we will not accept that contractor coming to Region 10 to repeat the shenanigans happening in Region 10,” Morian said.
The GWI will soon embark on a multi-million-dollar corrective project to remedy the faults of the U.S. $412.3 M project that was executed by the contractor in 2011.
The project was funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and aimed to provide 24 hours water supply from the two plants in Amelia’s Ward and Wisroc to World Health Organisation (WHO) standards and to provide reliability of supply with on-site power generation and production of sodium hypocholorite.

Linden was chosen to execute such a multi-million-dollar project, because the residents for years have suffered from limited and unsafe water supplies from five deteriorated plants. To date, the project in many ways did not meet its expectations and Lindeners are not benefiting from the objectives of the project.
Several faults were highlighted by GWI engineers. These range from design of the water plants to poor construction. Morian expressed disbelief that this same contractor is expected to return.

“We have heard that the same contractor that has built the wells that has failed and all the water production and the same systems that they would have put in place, that has failed and we are hearing from all and sundry that that contractor is about to be given another contract to come to Linden, Region 10, to work so we are actually awarding failure.”
Consultations were held during the execution of the project and several residents revealed that the contractor was advised that mistakes were being made, but paid no heed.
Director of Project Implementation, Jailal, said that GWI now has to pump millions of dollars to remedy the faulty project, since it is basically back to square one.

“We are forced now as an entity to put money towards refurbishing the existing plant, $60M towards the Mackenzie Plant and West Watooka plant,” Jailall said.
In addition to this, another $60M has to be spent to remedy the filtration problem and another $20M to remedy the distribution system. Other gaps to be addressed by GWI are the non-revenue water-reduction programme, installation of water meters for all customers and the replacement of mains in Christianburg, Wisroc, Half Mile and Canvas City.