Retool or lose

His comments were made last Friday, following the signing ceremony at the Hilton Trinidad between Udecott and the Shanghai Construction Group (SCG) for the construction of a US$100 million National Academy for the Performing Arts and a $370 million Social Development Tower.

Hart said there was no shortage of local companies to undertake work in the construction sector but the main challenge remained finding qualified persons in construction management to perform some of the projects being undertaken.

However Hart stressed that this does not mean that local contractors will be bypassed for foreign ones. He said the priority is using local and developing contractors, and source labour outside, if there was need to.

The Udecott chairman said even if it is determined that foreign contractors have greater expertise to handle certain works than local contractors, Udecott will encourage local contractors to use the maximum amount of local content that they can.

Hart also said it was a good idea for all contractors currently engaged in the construction sector to institute apprenticeship and on-the-job training programmes in order to improve the skills and competencies of their workers. He noted that one such contractor had established a crane operator school to train 15 TT nationals.

"We have a responsibility on several fronts to ensure that we can get skilled labour, so we can develop skilled labour," the Udecott chairman stated.

Contractors Association (TTCA) president Mikey Joseph, however, said given the number of foreign contractors who have come to TT or who plan to come, the country could be "ripe for rape" if proper procedures are not in place.

The TTCA president said local contractors and Udecott have been speaking for some time about whether the proper procurement procedures are being followed for construction sector projects and locals must be given proper advice as to how they can ramp up their efficiencies to meet the demands of the current construction boom in TT.

Joseph claimed that the reality in construction today was that several construction projects being undertaken by local and foreign contractors are behind time, between three to six months time in some cases.

He said the reason for this is because all contractors have the same pool of local labour to work with and while foreign contractors bring in management and technical staff, they do not bring additional labour with them. Asked whether the importation of skilled construction workers from other Caricom nations would assist the situation or was actually taking place, Joseph said it could but there are no signs of these types of workers coming to TT at this time. He explained that the reason for this was that there were construction booms taking place in countries like Jamaica and Dominica, while construction workers are in high demand in countries such as Grenada, which are still rebuilding their infrastructure in the wake of natural disasters.

Joseph also reiterated his concern that the construction industry is overheating because of the number of mega projects being undertaken by large contractors, with small and medium contractors not having the opportunities to graduate up to this level.

He suggested that joint ventures be set up between local and foreign contractors, which would allow locals to gain specific skills to better handle some of the construction projects.

SCG group president Tong Jisheng said the group was thrilled to add TT to its list of partners and has pledged a long term commitment to TT through the establishment of a local subsidiary — SCG International (TT).

Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Chinese Vice-President Zeng Quihong last year signed an economic cooperation agreement between TT and China in 2004.