GOVERNMENT has terminated the multimillion-dollar contracts for the construction of the Yarrowkabra Secondary School and the reconstruction of the St. Roses’ High School.
In two separate letters issued on Monday, Attorney-General Anil Nandlall notified both contractors, BK International Inc. and Courtney Benn Contracting Services Ltd, about the termination of their contracts.

In BK’s case, the former A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government had entered into a contract with the company through the Ministry of Education, for the construction of the Yarrowkabra Secondary School, just off the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
The contract was fixed at $826.5 million, and the scheduled date for completion of the work is March 12, 2021.

“Thus far, your company has only completed five per cent of the schedule of work. As a consequence, your company has committed a fundamental breach of the terms of the contract, and as a result thereof, the Government of Guyana hereby exercises its right to terminate the contract with immediate effect,” said the Attorney-General in the letter to the company.
The grounds for termination were cited as the failure to comply with the schedule of work, and the inordinate delay in the completion of work on the project.
The Government, according to Nandlall, will activate the provisions in the contract regarding the enforcement of ten per cent of the contract sum as liquidated damages, and the surrendering of the performance security as a result of the company’s fundamental breach of the contract.

Similarly, the government enforced the same provisions on Courtney Benn Contracting Services Ltd, as the company has only completed nine per cent of the scheduled work on the reconstruction of the St. Roses’ High School.

The former government, through the Ministry of Education, had entered into an agreement with Courtney Benn Contracting Services on August 8, 2018, for the reconstruction of the St. Roses’ High School, located at Camp and Church Streets.

It was initially agreed that the project would cost over $352 million, and be completed on or before April 8, 2020. The former government, however, had issued an addendum to the contract, dated December 23, 2019, to facilitate the driving of piles by the company.

The contract was then extended for a period of 20 months, and is now scheduled to be completed by August 23, 2021. The contract sum was also increased to over $412 million.
As a consequence of the delay in the delivery of this project, the contract was terminated with immediate effect.

The government has since ordered that both companies arrange to have the respective sites cleared immediately.
It was reported recently that over $20 billion in “illegal contracts”, issued by the former APNU+AFC administration over the past year, will be investigated.