A midst a call for it to speed up EU-funded sea defence works, BK International on Monday said that the official date of completion of the project is February 28, 2012, and it intends to “complete this project by that date”. According to the construction firm, it has already taken the necessary steps to ensure the timely completion of the works and it is confident of its ability to perform these tasks.
New EU Ambassador to Guyana Robert Kopecky
“We are pleased at the inspection carried out by the [EU] Delegation and are happy at their report that at ‘most’ locations the works were in ‘acceptable’ state, allowing for provincial acceptance of the 13 locations inspected. Some helpful observations were made during the inspections, and BK International Inc is grateful for their comments which we accept in the spirit of cooperation between BK International Inc and the European Union.”
However, “we need to remind the general public that this contract is governed by the special condition Article 31: Tax and Custom Arrangement Item 1: 2.0 2(g) and 3 which provides for the contractor to be granted duty-free concession for the supply of equipment and plant, and the waiver of all local taxes and duties for materials used.”
BK International said it suffered considerable delay in obtaining these duty-free concessions (approximately six months) and this contributed to a delay in the commencement of the project.
Incidentally, “after two years, we are still awaiting the exemption of royalty for sand under this project which was agreed to by all parties under the addendum to the contract. The EU is aware of this”.
In addressing the statement about the lack of capacity in managing the large project, BK International stated that the company has executed in excess of 30 sea defence projects of similar nature funded by international financial institutions and the government of Guyana over the past 22 years.
“Most recently, (under the Ninth EDF Sea Defences) BK International, with a price of Gy$ 4 billion, successfully competed against MNO Vervat, International BV, a European construction company whose bid was Gy$ 12 billion. For this particular project, BK’s bid was, therefore, Gy$ 8 billion less than the other bidder.
“In addition, the government of Guyana and the European Union requested and negotiated a further reduction of over 300,000 euros in BK’s successful bid and BK agreed to this as requested in the spirit of patriotism. This means considerable savings for the Guyana economy. BK International Inc maintains that it has the capacity to handle all of the contracts entered into and this includes management and engineering capacity, financial and equipment resources, and has completed sea defence works in all coastal regions of Guyana.”
The construction company said too that it possesses the largest fleet of equipment, land and sea transport, and the largest number of technical personnel of all local contractors. The EU-funded 17 million-euro programme to reconstruct 1.6 kilo metres and rehabilitate approximately 18 kilo metres of sea defence across the coastland did not meet its October 21, 2011 deadline.
BK International was awarded the 23-month contract in 2009. The actual physical works under the project commenced in January 2010. The company later wrote the government seeking an extension on the contract duration. This was pushed back to February 2012, but this deadline may also be broken.
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