LILIENDAAL - Guyana’s construction sector continues to face a series of challenges ranging from a shortage of essential materials to a lack of human resources, but Chief Works Officer Jeffery Vaughn said topping the chart is the incompetence of personnel within the sector.
Addressing the Public Works Ministry’s fourth engineering conference on Thursday at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, Vaughn said 98 contracting firms have been registered on the contract register; however, a high percentage has been unable to vie for internationally-funded projects owing to their incompetence.
Based on an assessment of contracts awarded over the past five years, Vaughn said only a few contractors had the capacity to execute projects funded through loans or grants from international agencies, such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank.
“It is something worrying to know that we have contractors and consultants locally, and here it is, we are faced with capacity issues,” he lamented.
The chief works officer said direct foreign investment in projects leads to increased demand in the construction industry, creating much-needed jobs, but he questioned whether Guyanese at this stage are capable of capitalising on these mega opportunities.
Disturbing shift
“National construction companies lack the technical managerial capacity to understand most of the foreign-funded projects, that’s a fact…,” Vaughn said.
He stated that there has been a disturbing shift in the construction sector. According to him, reports indicate that the sector is dominated by unqualified persons, many of whom are managing projects, resulting in time and cost overruns and defective bills of quantities. He said lack of understanding of procurement rules is also common.
He said poor-quality work has also led to projects being terminated. “We should not compromise quality, for anything! Because if we compromise our quality it is obvious that we will have a large bill in terms of the redoing of that project,” he stressed.
National construction firms have also been accused of having little or no funds to participate in the sponsorship of the privatised projects. “It is not a challenge. There are less and less projects being done by our local contractors,” he reiterated.
The core of the problem lies within the education sector, Vaughn told the audience. An overview of the 2012/2013 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations indicates that pass rates in science subjects critical to the engineering field are low. A meagre 30.35 per cent of students passed mathematics, while 52.39 per cent passed chemistry. Physics recorded a pass rate of 54.34 per cent and English 45 per cent.
“For us to move on, we have to deal with the core issue.” The problem also exists at the level of the technical institute, with the pass rate decreasing in 2013.
In reviewing reports from the University of Guyana (UG), Vaughn disclosed that only 2900 students enrolled in the Faculty of Technology during the period 2009-2013 from a total of 31,090.
“This represents 9.3 per cent of the university population over that five-year period. How do you supply our construction sector with engineers, with clerk of works, with technicians, with supervisors when we have such a meagre figure,” he questioned.
He emphasised that professionals are needed, so the construction sector must move to improve training and the capacity of students, starting as early as the secondary level.
“We have to give them the tools for them to understand math and science-based subjects. This is the only way that they will be able to deal with the challenges that we are faced with in the sector,” he said.
Training is also needed to meet the demand of the technological revolution.
Shortage of materials
The shortage of construction materials continues to be a major concern. The construction boom demands an increased supply of stone, cement, zinc sheets and other materials.
During 2011-2013, there was a shortage of aggregates: quarry production stood at approximately 680,000 tonnes while demand was recorded at 767,106 tonnes.
Moving forward, the chief works officer said, there is greater need for a public-private partnership in the construction sector. (Guyana Times)
