Bdos contractor
knocks PetroCaribe
The Trinidad Guardian
Port Spain
Petroleumworld.com
09 24 06
A
Barbadian contractor has congratulated T&T Prime
Ministers Patrick Manning and his Barbadian counterpart
Owen Arthur for not signing on to PetroCaribe.
“I’m
just sincerely happy and congratulate the Prime
Minister of T&T and my Prime Minister for not
being taken in by the Trojan horse,” said
Sir Charles Williams, chairman of CO Williams Construction
Ltd yesterday. “This is the gentleman that
says he is concerned with helping the poor countries
of the Caribbean and he ignores the one petroleum
producing country.”
Williams
was the feature speaker at the Third Caribbean Asphalt
Conference and Launch of the Caribbean Asphalt Association
at the Cascadia.
He
said there is a danger of Venezuela’s Pdvsa
squeezing out international companies, and gaining
a monopoly over oil storage facilities in Caribbean
countries.
He
also knocked multilateral lending agencies, including
the Caribbean Development Bank for favouring foreign
contractors who, in the end, either cannot complete
projects or complete them over the tender amount.
Williams
said foreign construction firms win contracts with
bids that are sometimes impossibly low, but the
bids are accepted because the firms are pre-qualified.
He said a system that would put pre-qualification
and tendering at the same time would allow unrealistic
bids to be thrown out.
He
also called for construction firms to be allowed
to set up their own ports, a move that would make
it easier to move aggregate throughout the Caribbean.
Williams’
company has been allowed to set up a port in St
Vincent but has been waiting for years for permission.
“Why
can’t we get together as contractors and governments
to facilitate and make our roads less expensive,”
he said.
The
asphalt conference started yesterday and runs until
tomorrow.
Trinidad
Guardian
Tuesday 19th September, 2006
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©2006 Trinidad Guardian. All Rights Reserved.
