Former employees of Brazilian highway contractor, Construtora OAS, are calling on the Government to clear their outstanding salaries left unpaid by the contractor when it closed its operations last year.
The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU), which is representing the 1,000 former workers, yesterday met with the representatives of the National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) to discuss the issue as the State-owned project management company was responsible for the still incomplete San Fernando to Point Fortin Highway.
Speaking with reporters outside Nidco’s office in Port-of-Spain before the meeting, OWTU president general, Ancel Roget, said Nidco and the Government had a responsibility to ensure the workers were paid before it embarked on the process of seeking contractors to complete the project. “The Government, through its agent Nidco, would have fired contractor OAS, which owes these workers money. We feel that there is a duty of care and responsibility on behalf of the Government and Nidco to now make good the payment of the outstanding wages and severance payments to the workers,” he said. He claimed that the most of the workers were owed almost $30,000 each.
“These workers are owed money and they ought to be paid at all costs. Those workers have commitments just like everybody else. Nidco would have fired OAS for whatever reason but our business is ensuring the workers are paid,” Roget added.
He also stated he and the OWTU supported Government’s plan to complete the mega-project but maintained those who worked on the project since 2010 had to be paid first. “We agree that the highway must be completed but the workers who have already done work on it must be paid,” Roget said.
OAS was awarded the contract for the project, initially budgeted at $5.285 billion, in May 2010. The several segments of the project had been delayed since it commenced due to protest action by environmentalist Dr Wayne Kublalsingh and the Highway Re-Route Movement (HRM), a group of residents who are opposed to the project as they have to be relocated as they claimed it posed a danger to the environmentally sensitive Oropouche lagoon.
The HRM has a lawsuit before High Court Judge James Aboud in which it is claiming that the Government breached its rights by failing to consult with them before starting the project. The lawsuit is yet to go on trial.
Last year several of the company’s sub-contractors sued it after it failed to pay them for the services they rendered. The contract was eventually cancelled after last September’s general election, with the project almost 63 per cent complete.
Speaking in Parliament in May, Minister in the Office of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs, Stuart Young, called for an investigation into the project and OAS as he claimed it had cost overruns in excess of $8 billion. Young also said three days before the last general election the Government “entered into a written agreement with OAS, called Contract Addendum No 2, whereby they expressly recognised that OAS was bankrupt, and stated that they could invoke Clause 15.2 (e) of the FIDIC contract immediately terminating the contract. “However, despite this, they proceeded secretly to give up this right of termination and waived all claims against OAS, thus releasing and discharging OAS from any liability,” he added.