There are more questions than answers after last week’s shut down of the billion-dollar Beetham Wastewater Project by Super Industrial Services Ltd (SIS).
Now both state-owned National Gas Company (NGC) and Couva-based SIS are maintaining their respective silences on the future of the project.
The Sunday Guardian emailed the following questions to NGC after it was announced that SIS was fired from the project:
1. What is the next step with regards to the project?
n Will construction works cease until another contractor is retained to complete the project?
n Will the completion works on the project be re-tendered?
But NGC’s acting manager of corporate communications, Christine Punnett, directed the Sunday Guardian to the parliamentary contribution made by Minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General, Stuart Young, on Friday. While Young did answer questions regarding the legal avenues to recover the money paid to SIS and the ratio of completed work to monies paid, he did not touch on the next step for the incomplete project.
Young’s parliamentary contribution, however, dealt more with the successive issues that led to SIS being fired by NGC and detailed moves to recover some $780 million from SIS, but did not touch on the future of the actual project.
Yesterday, however, Young redirected action to be taken on the future of the project to the NGC. He told the Sunday Guardian that the “board and the management of NGC have the responsibility of dealing with this contractual arrangement and I am certain that they will do so in the best interest of the company.”
Young said “as a matter of the record, my ministerial statement delivered in Parliament yesterday states how much money has been paid by NGC to SIS to date. I have no further comments at this time and confine myself to what was stated in Parliament yesterday.”
The two companies involved seem unable to say what is the next step for this most expensive project undertaken by the former government.
At $1.2 billion, the Beetham Waste Water project was undertaken as a joint initiative between the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) and NGC, with the energy company using its substantial coffers to fund the mega-project.
Fast forward two years on and the project has been abandoned by SIS after the Government changed hands in September and even the founder’s son, Terrence Lalla, who just last year was reported as the company owner has distanced himself from the company.
This is not the first time SIS has been able to avoid questions by the media. The company refused to comment when questioned about the favour it found under the former administration. Back in 2014, the Sunday Guardian had listed several multi-million dollar contracts SIS and its eight subsidiary companies received between 2010 and 2014
Whereas SIS’s website is currently off-line, the Sunday Guardian had reported then that the eight subsidiary companies also won government contracts. Those companies include Marshall Asphalt Pavers, Prime Equipment Rentals, Quality Refractory Insulation Services, Scaffolding Professionals, Phoenix Welding & Fabrication and Casa Contractors Ltd. The company also purchased Executive Bodyguard Services Ltd (EBSL) for US$14 million in 2013.
The company, through its subsidiaries, did work on several government projects including the following:
n Febeau Government Primary School at $18 million
n Shouter Baptist School for $28 million
n Couva Interchange for $70 million
n Disability Centre for $11.5 million
n Siparia Market for $56 million,
n Motor Vehicle Authority for $232 million.
Several attempts to contact the management by telephone have failed in the past six days since news broke that NGC had fired the company from the billion-dollar Beetham Wastewater Project. The Sunday Guardian visited the Couva offices on Wednesday but was told that no one was available to speak with the media.
The Sunday Guardian has also been reliably informed that company founder, Krishna Lalla, has left the country and has set up a home in Panama, telling close friends that he felt the need to “get away for a while.”