August 26, 2000 $1 billion Airport Terminal
By A. H. Hotep
THE new terminal of Piarco International Airport will cost the taxpayers more than $1 billion by the time it is completed.
This is a project the UNC government condemned when they were in opposition. They called the reduced figures proposed by the previous government a waste of taxpayer's money. They claimed that we did not need such an elaborate project.
However, no sooner this UNC government took office they sanctioned the project and increased the expenditure while insuring that all the major contracts in this project went to the financiers of their political party. They have guaranteed a retirement fund for their closest friends and families for several generations. Very little if any of the profits are going to the multitude of Indians who give blind support to this UNC government. They remain trapped behind a caste mentality.
But the Airports Authority is confident the airport will be "fully operational" by December.
At a news conference yesterday at the Ministry of Works and Transport on Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain, Project Coordinator of the Airports Development Project, Peter Cateau, said the total construction cost of the new terminal was now $769 million.
Speciality equipment, a contract which is handled by the Airports Authority (AA), but held by a US company, CalMaQuip, and which includes luggage scanners and high-tech equipment used by the Authority, will cost $183 million.
And fees for the two main consultants, Birk Hillman Consultants Inc (BHC) and Nipdec, run to $121 million and $30 million, respectively.
Cateau said BHC's fees include not just the construction of the new terminal, but also the original design of the facility. BHC, in its contract, had negotiated a consultant's fee of 15.5 per cent of the cost of the construction.
In 1997, the Authority, then chaired by stockbroker Ameer Edoo, had estimated the terminal project, including consultancy fees, at $758 million.
Cateau explained that the increased cost was the result of additional works on the project.
