China Jiangsu gets $B job

Despite failing to deliver the $200 million eTecK headquarters by its contractual completion date of February of this year, and despite being unable to meet the conditions of an interim agreement made between itself and the eTecK management, China Jiangsu has forged ahead with work on the UTT campus by starting construction at the site on the UTT’s $975 million signature building.

Both the UTT campus and the eTecK headquarters (also known as the eTecK flagship complex) are on the Wallerfield site of what is collectively known as the Tamana InTech Park.

Last week, roughly two dozen workers and two cranes were at work on the UTT signature building.

Some excavation and foundation work had been done and was still under way at the site, with concrete pillars and slabs being installed at the eastern end of the site.

There were deep tractor tracks and several multi-lingual warning signs installed at the site bearing both English and Mandarin words for the benefit of the Chinese workers at the site.

The entire area was fenced in and work seemed to be slow.

Initial site work on the $975 million building began as early as January 16 this year, sources close to the project said, even when it was apparent that the company could not complete the neighboring $200 million eTeck headquarters on time. But officials working on the project are adamant that despite the fact that the same company is now at work on both projects, the two projects will not be plagued with the same, industry-wide problems of scarce labour and the inflated cost of materials.

While China Jiangsu International Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago Limited is registered as one company in the Companies Registry, one official said two “separate teams” within the company were responsible for the two projects which form a core part of the Government’s development drive. But news that China Jiangsu has begun work on the billion-dollar UTT campus is likely to raise concerns over its ability to finish the project.

Just this year eTecK was forced to grant a waiver of potentially $5million worth of penalty fees incurred by China Jiangsu over its inability to complete the eTecK headquarters.

Sources close to that project this week said that China Jiangsu and eTecK have come to an interim agreement in order to allow the company to complete the building within a revised schedule.

The agreement involves China Jiangsu putting up more manpower and increasing the hours of work at the site of the project.

But sources say, this has not come to pass.

Work at the eTecK headquarters remained slow this week. A shell of a building is at the site, where work was described as less than 50 percent complete. It remained closed-off and tightly guarded by a beefed-up security presence.

The UTT was able to obtain a certificate of environmental clearance (CEC) for its 67,185 square metre campus in October of 2007 after the project’s architects, ACLA: Works wrote to the Environmental Management Authority, asking them to be de-listed from the project’s CEC and to have the CEC instead transferred to the UTT. In an April 27, 2007 letter from the firm of architects and urban planners, ACLA: Works associate Darren Brathwaite wrote the EMA over concerns that the firm, which had applied for the CEC on behalf of UTT, could be held accountable over any violations of the terms of the CEC.

“While our scope of activities at UTT Tamana Campus encompasses both architectural as well as urban design services, we in no shape or form concede any culpability for adhering to or enforcing the requirements of the CEC,” Brathwaite wrote.

Earlier this year Ken Julien, who is the chairman of eTecK as well as UTT president, downplayed concerns over China Jiangsu’s inability to complete the eTecK project. He said, however, that work at the UTT campus had been affected by the rising cost of construction materials.

“Everybody has that problem with inflation and costs of materials going up,” Julien told reporters at a UTT symposium at Crowne Plaza Port-of-Spain on May 3. He insisted that the eTecK and UTT projects remained separate, notwithstanding that they share the same contractor and are on the same industrial park site.

On May 17, 2007 then Science and Technology Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid announced the contract for the UTT campus had been awarded to China Jiangsu International Corporation. He said the campus is expected to be “the cornerstone of the university system” in this country.

Work at the campus, the minister said, broke down into: infrastructure (at a cost of $213 million); the signature building ($975 million); furniture and equipment ($250 million); professional fees ($109 million); contingencies ($77 million) and VAT ($243 million). The campus is expected to host several facilities including schools, power plants, natural gas pipelines, laboratories, classrooms, a kitchen, a hospital, a health centre a nature park/trail and even a nursing home, according to the project’s CEC.