.::The Official General Election 2015 Thread::.

[goalpost]

what the latest with this ravi balgobin fella? he gettin thru with the hunger strike?

[UML]

NEVER forget. Too far to go back now!!

[Habit7]

Nice try UML, but what does any of that have to do with Dr. Rowley?

[zoom rader]

Nice try UML, but what does any of that have to do with Dr. Rowley?

Rowley have dictatorship tendencies and will most likely turn trini in to a Haiti

[Synista Sam]

Hey where can I get a trunk release for a viper alarm installed, reasonably priced

[1UZFE]

Hey where can I get a trunk release for a viper alarm installed, reasonably priced

This could be the best post eva or d most outa timing..

[dougla_boy]

Hey where can I get a trunk release for a viper alarm installed, reasonably priced

Out of all threads, he choose this one.....lol

[UML]

UNC MASS MEETING

26th Anniversary

Sunday 3pm

Rienzi Complex, Couva.

Come celebrate.

[rfari]

UNC MASS MEETING

26th Anniversary

Sunday 3pm

Rienzi Complex, Couva.

Come celebrate.

I could load 3 big bus. Talk to ur ppl nah?

[zoom rader]

UNC MASS MEETING

26th Anniversary

Sunday 3pm

Rienzi Complex, Couva.

Come celebrate.

I could load 3 big bus. Talk to ur ppl nah?

Sorry no PNM criminals

[rfari]

UNC MASS MEETING

26th Anniversary

Sunday 3pm

Rienzi Complex, Couva.

Come celebrate.

I could load 3 big bus. Talk to ur ppl nah?

Sorry no PNM criminals

This is new policy? Wasn't like that since UNC 2010 campaigning

[SiR8081]

What I don't get is the whole who stole who idea. As far as I know the politicians think up the idea and then the GORTT pays various consultants etc to make it happen/see if it can happen. Doesn't that make the plans really the property of the people of T&T? The way these anuses talking you would swear the money coming from Balisier house. "THIS IS A PNM PLAN, THEM STEAL IT FROM WE."

Is not who dream up the plan, is who implement it with the major factors being the plans executed within time, budget and quality of works.

The way they talking about this and that being their plan and idea you would swear they doing us some kinda favour. Like a rapid rail plan does ease traffic and a highway plan does as well. A new industry plan brings revenue. steups. real failure thing men fighting over.

You put yourself up for public office, I dont want to hear about what you thought about and how many plans you had even though you in power for the past 10 years and had a major oil and gas boom all the while trying to foist more taxes on the population while the quality of life was going downhill.

I want to know what you do, when you it, how it improving my life or the lives of my fellow trinbagonians and you better damn well make sure it within time, budget etc

Is not your blasted money spending, and the money not coming from balisier house/rienzi, it coming from the govt coffers.

And on the issue of the rapid rail, that is real garbage, we dont need it. If we had the cash to burn and finance it, no problem but I am sure we dont. What we need is an efficient bus rapid transit system. Apparently it can work in Australia, Brazil and Colombia but we too big for that. Those 3 nations are small fries compared to our 1.3M people.

[dougla_boy]

UNC MASS MEETING

26th Anniversary

Sunday 3pm

Rienzi Complex, Couva.

Come celebrate.

I could load 3 big bus. Talk to ur ppl nah?

Sorry no PNM criminals

This is new policy? Wasn't like that since UNC 2010 campaigning

touch meh when u pumping nah....get a fresh UNC jersey d other day, no $500 tho

ah mubbe eh look negro enuff, so they mubbe figure ah voting them regardless

[K74T]

Well check how I geeing Kwame, Leroy and de crew ah lil $250 and ah case to pump in de Rienzi dance Sunday plz God.

[rfari]

UNC MASS MEETING

26th Anniversary

Sunday 3pm

Rienzi Complex, Couva.

Come celebrate.

I could load 3 big bus. Talk to ur ppl nah?

Sorry no PNM criminals

This is new policy? Wasn't like that since UNC 2010 campaigning

touch meh when u pumping nah....get a fresh UNC jersey d other day, no $500 tho

ah mubbe eh look negro enuff, so they mubbe figure ah voting them regardless

Dat self. That rum and roti finish u have dey you shoulda have bout 5 box drain contract for the least

[dougla_boy]

UNC MASS MEETING

26th Anniversary

Sunday 3pm

Rienzi Complex, Couva.

Come celebrate.

I could load 3 big bus. Talk to ur ppl nah?

Sorry no PNM criminals

This is new policy? Wasn't like that since UNC 2010 campaigning

touch meh when u pumping nah....get a fresh UNC jersey d other day, no $500 tho

ah mubbe eh look negro enuff, so they mubbe figure ah voting them regardless

Dat self. That rum and roti finish u have dey you shoulda have bout 5 box drain contract for the least

[eliteauto]

Atiba and Kwesi up by me say they going Rienzi for the buffet, I tell dem is not everytime yuh hadda study yuh belly so, dem fellas laugh at me and say, "after de Caroni is only 2 leg food dong dey, yuh feel the noise yuh does be hearing when Moonilal speechifying is the only horn in de meeting?"

[rfari]

Guuuude. Men like ZR and uml eh even know it

[dougla_boy]

bwahahahahahahahahaha


@elite....d fok dan....hoss......lawdddd....

ah weak yes....

[hustla_ambition101]

Guuuude. Men like ZR and uml eh even know it

Dey too busy lusting on rowley

[Habit7]

Ravi Balgobin Maharaj proves that UNC till ah dead trumps PNM till a dead.

[rfari]

No confidence motion in finance minister underway. Howai proving to be the perfect fit in the UNC govt

[desifemlove]

OK. so Kams gave some lil cake to Dr. Rowley...

is it me tinking "what was Kams or Krowley supposed to do?" Was Dr. KRowley supposed to say "steups, i ent taking no cake from allyuh for saying meh mudda got raped!"

the media probably jus waiting til Mrs. K call election....mus be running out of stories.

[rfari]

What u talking about babygirl?

[desifemlove]

spin, PR, and tricks.

[rfari]

Or ok. Cool cool

[bluefete]

"It has always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men - kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling - are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest - sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness,and self interest - are traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second." - JOHN STEINBECK

[Redman]

No confidence motion in finance minister underway. Howai proving to be the perfect fit in the UNC govt

Louse tendency and crookedness traits long before ascending to Ministerial office.

Not UNC till he ded..but since he born.

[desifemlove]

"It has always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men - kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling - are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest - sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness,and self interest - are traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second." - JOHN STEINBECK

competition is part of life..and nice guys finish last.

[MD Marketers]

[b][/b]Nidco president: Why Gov’t stopped Rapid Rail after paying consultants $500m

Aleem Khan

Published:
Thursday, November 1, 2012


National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) president Dr Carson Charles has explained why the Government stopped the controversial rapid rail project after paying $500 million to French consultants.

Speaking about “the crazy project called the Trinidad Rapid Rail that the Leader of the Opposition (Dr Keith Rowley) said he would like to see executed,” Charles said he “thought that must be a statement made (by Rowley) out of ignorance, and some information could be shared on that.”

He said, “A decision was taken to implement a rapid rail project here. No feasibility study was done. In other words, nobody knew what it would cost, but a decision was taken to do it.

A contract was awarded to a company to do it, (a) design-build-operate-and-maintain contract. All it was lacking was the finance package, and you could call it a public private partnership (PPP) project, but it was lacking the finance package.

PPPs normally involve financing, so the Government would have had to find the finance, but it was a design-build-operate-and-maintain contract (that) was awarded to a consortium called the TriniTrain consortium, major partner, a French firm called Bouygues, and the consultants selected to execute the project (was also) a French firm.

“In fact, there were two consultant firms, both foreign. So the consultants are foreign, the design-build-operate-and-maintain contractor is foreign (French) and they are reporting directly to the president of Nidco,” he said. Charles said there was “no engineer involved from this country,” no planner, no economist. “None of the professionals from this country (were) involved at all,” he said. “The reporting is from the consultant to the president of Nidco, who reports to a Cabinet committee on it. When I took over here at Nidco, I inherited this. So the consultant came to report to me in 2010.”

Charles, who spoke to the Business Guardian on October 10, asked rhetorically, “What are the facts of the project? The project is based in phases. At the end of Phase I of the project, in which the design-build-operate-maintain contractor is required to carry out all his designs, his investigations. He did all of his surveys an so on, his geo-technical work, etcetera. He did the design of the cars as the elements for the trains. He did a tremendous amount of work. He presented this work to Nidco, both in hard copy and also in electronic form. It’s a tremendous amount of work we have stored here now.”

He said at the end of phase I, the consultant “came to find out if he had permission to go to Phase II. Phase II involves construction in which he would actually begin to construct the rail system, bring in the cars.” Charles said, “Phase I cost us over $500 million. Remember, a feasibility has not yet been done, and that’s designs. So you spend $500 million doing investigations and designs, but you haven’t done a feasibility yet, and you don’t know what the cost of the project is. How do you find out the cost of the project?

“At the end of phase I, he (the consultant) tells us what the cost of the project is, and this project, his figure is US$7 billion. That’s about $46 or so billion. It makes the San Fernando-Point Fortin highway look like child’s play because the Point Fortin highway is $7.5 billion. This is about $46 billion, plus the cost of acquisitions, and all other consultancy fees that (were) not even counted; management fees and so on.

“All of these have to be counted still, plus, this was also going through the port. So you have to relocate the Port of Port-of-Spain, and if you didn’t relocate the port, the consultant said then you could run the rail through the port, but it would be elevated, so more money.

“In other words, we talking about somewhere between $50 billion to $60 billion, at least, for this project. That’s what I mean by a project we can’t afford. So we paid them the half a billion. We paid them the $500 million. We had no choice because they did the work already, but you know, we can’t use any of the information. It’s just sitting there. If anybody wants it, they can come and contact Nidco and they will get some information on geo-technical investigation and they will get something on rail cars, but we can’t use information on rail cars, can we? To build anything else?”

TriniTrain Consortium
In response to calls by the Opposition to re-tender, he said, “The contract was already awarded. It was a design-build-operate-maintain contract to a TriniTrain consortium. It’s a consortium that is quite capable, quite reputable. They are quite capable of doing all the stages, including building the trains and operating them and maintaining them.

“They were given a contract to do all of it, but the contract was phased, so at the end of phase I, you could decide if you should proceed to phase II or not. Although we had spent about $500 million, we knew we couldn’t find $60 billion, so we had to say no to Phase II. There was no need to re-tender, or to go out for tender because you (the previous administration) already awarded the contract.

“Of course, you could have decided that you want to take all the designs and go out to tender for somebody else besides that, but you (the previous administration) already awarded the contract. Why would you do that? You already chose the contractor that you want to build it. So I don’t understand. I think he (Rowley) is mistaken. I think he was misinformed. That’s the only explanation I could imagine for what he said. That this is really the worst example that you could possibly choose.”

Charles said, “It’s not that we can’t have rails, you know, or we can’t have a train system, you know. That’s the point I want to make. It’s not that we can’t have it, but this particular one, obviously, couldn’t be done. What you could have decided was to do a feasibility study first, which would tell you what kind of rail system you really want to introduce here. For example, our geo-technicals, the contractor said, are really bad, our soils are really difficult soils, even in that area for a train, because the train requires very heavy foundations, so that added to the cost.

“If you were to do light rail, you wouldn’t have that problem. So you could design a lighter rail system. You could use a more limited area and you could get something within your affordability. So we can have trains in the country, but we couldn’t have that project. We couldn’t have that rapid rail project.”
http://www.guardian.co.tt/business-guar ... onsultants

$500,000,000.00 spent and no feasibility done to see if the project feasible with a small population like ours.

Am I reading this right?
All phases of the contract were awarded but only the cost of the first phase was known at the time of it being awarded?
If this is true then this does not substantiate a valid contract for all phases & couldn't possibly be justified in a court of law.

With regards to the re tendering for the rapid rail. This seems to be a very viable solution, but first a feasibility should be done as to what is the best rail system bearing in mind we have a financial limit.

Lastly why classify the $500b as a loss. If the feasibility is done and the contract is retendered and then awarded, chances are we may still be able to use some of the research from the $500b first phase to progress us into the second phase a lot earlier than expected. Maybe even keep this in mind when detailing the tender documents so contractors know they already have a first phase package included. I'm hoping the feasibility study would factor that in as well.

On a side note: Where is the documentation regarding how they justified spending $500 billion on what seems to be portrayed as information only.
I would gladly review such a document in the hopes of finding justification for such a huge expenditure.