Cabinet Meets 14 Contractors in First-of-Its-Kind Session; New Support Unit and Sector Reforms Announced
Cabinet spokesman Maurice Merchant says the government has held what contractors described as a “historic” high-level meeting with 14 local builders, launching a series of structural changes aimed at modernizing the construction sector and improving local firms’ competitiveness.
Merchant said the meeting, held on Wednesday, brought together the Prime Minister, Works Minister Maria Bird Browne, senior Works Ministry officials and a cross-section of contractors for “candid engagement” on longstanding problems in the industry .
According to Merchant, contractors welcomed the government’s decision to directly engage them and said collaboration of this kind was “essential for building a stronger local industry.” They also credited the Works Ministry for improvements in communication, organization and payment consistency since Minister Browne took over the portfolio .
Merchant said Prime Minister Gaston Browne acknowledged that the sector has faced persistent challenges for decades, including cash-flow limitations, cost overruns, chronic delays, reputational concerns, and weak business and project-management practices. The Prime Minister told the group the government wants local contractors to be “fully empowered” and capable of operating at the highest professional level, but said modernization is necessary to meet national timelines and budget requirements .
As part of the reforms, Merchant announced that the Ministry of Works will establish a Contractor Support Unit to help firms prepare bids, improve costing, strengthen administrative systems, access technical support and obtain training aligned with international standards. The unit will also help prepare local companies for upcoming major tenders, including projects to be financed by the Caribbean Development Bank in Barbuda .
Merchant said the ministry will hold its first bid-preparation workshop on Monday at the John E. St. Luce Centre as part of the rollout. “This new unit will help contractors in bid preparation, costing assistance, technical and administrative support, business development training, and skills upgrades,” he said .
He also announced that the Cabinet reaffirmed a commitment to more timely payments, noting that predictable cash flow is critical for contractors’ ability to perform. In addition, the government will promote joint contracting arrangements between local firms and established regional or international companies to support knowledge transfer, strengthen management capacity and improve access to working capital .
Merchant said Wednesday’s session is the first in a series. The Cabinet will meet additional contractors in the coming weeks and will also begin sector consultations with farmers and supermarket operators.
He said both the government and the contractors agreed that the meeting marked “a significant step toward building a more competitive, modern, and resilient construction sector” in Antigua and Barbuda .
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It’s apparent that this meeting held was for all the ABLP inside supporters, was this meeting circulated or it was a hand pick of whom the government thinks are their cronies, how many of these contractors are a registered LLC company?, smh just the same old who you vote for in this country, only their inputs matter
@Ronald Peters
You are so right. But even for their supporters it was a nonsensical meeting
It is universally accepted that contractors who are not connected to the ALBP don’t get invited to submit bids. Further, they have to suck salt to get paid. Pringle is the exception
Notice the readout on the meeting. It’s the contractors fault and not the Government.
“the sector has faced persistent challenges for decades, including cash-flow limitations, cost overruns, chronic delays, reputational concerns, and weak business and project-management practices”
Of course if you don’t want to grease the palm of the people at Treasury, you will have cashflow problems.
Then they add: government will promote joint contracting arrangements between local firms and established regional or international companies to support knowledge transfer, strengthen management capacity and improve access to working capital.
There is a way to achieve objective of achieving local contractor capacity through Joint Ventures; but no one in the Government knows anything about how to go about creating joint ventures before the bids or RFP are issued.
The Chinese are not joint venturing with any Antigua contractor.
Their “Belt and Road” financing requires that they do all the engineering and construction work, with minor work going to locals.
Not even one Barbudan contractor was invited to this so called high level meeting.