PIARCO RUNWAY PROBE

The planned investigation into reported substandard runway paving at Piarco International Airport should seek to determine, among other things, whether the Airports Authority had arranged to have a regular evaluation of the work done on the runway as it progressed. It should seek to determine as well that if a progressive evaluation had been conducted, why was the less than required standard of repaving not brought to the immediate attention of the Airports Authority and/or the Ministry of Works and Transport and required action taken.

Since the contract for the runway repaving project cost the taxpayers some $22 million, along with the critical importance of the repaving exercise, there was clear need for regular appraisal. Indeed, the mere fact that there would be ongoing appraisal of any work done would have tended to render supplemental costs which might arise unnecessary. There are issues which should be addressed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the body which will investigate the work and determine who is responsible for the reported substandard aspects. Firm action must be taken against whoever is held to be responsible, including the fitness of the companies to be shortlisted for any relevant Government contracts which may arise.

Minister of Works and Transport, Mr Franklyn Khan, has been frank. Even as he offered that Government did not wish to start to assign blame too early, he nonetheless emphasised that the work had “not been done up to the specifications of the contract and there will be a cost implication.” Why, given the accusations of substandard work in the construction of the billion dollar Piarco International Airport Terminal Building and the continuing bad Press that this has provoked, did the Ministry of Works and Transport and/or the Airports Authority not take appropriate defensive action? Did officials of either not have a close look at the work in progress at any stage? Is it not possible, given the stated unevenness in the runway that planes are experiencing, that this troubling situation would have been encountered even before work on the runway paving project had been completed?

Why was it necessary for either the Ministry of Works and Transport or the Airports Authority to wait on a preliminary survey by the Federal Aviation Authority for an indication that the grade of the runway with respect to the paving “was particularly out of the specifications of the contract?” If, as the preliminary FAA survey pointed out in the context of the runway paving being out of the specifications of the contract, that the runway could either be resheeted with asphalt or repaved from scratch, are there mechanisms in place to recover any portion of the money paid out? Did the contract[s] call for Government’s withholding of a portion of the money agreed upon until it was satisfied that the work had been done to specifications? And if this is so how much does this amount to? We await the results of the ICAO investigation.