Former workman tips the bucket on MID contracts
A former workman in heavy equipment and plants with what is now the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) has spilled the beans on what he has come to know about how to get a contract from the Ministry.
“I get really angry to see how much tax-payers’ money is being wasted in paying people with little or no experience at all in road maintenance,” the man who asked for his name to be withheld, told Solomon Star in an exclusive interview Wednesday.
This has been going on for years, he said, adding it is time to put a stop to what is going on right now.
The man spent 18 years in what was then the Ministry of Transport and Public Utilities – the forerunner to what is now the MID.
“At the time, I worked under the supervision of British and Fijian civil engineers. As a matter of fact, I was not the only one. There were several of us. And when we completed a job, be it a bridge, a road it was something we were very proud of,” the man said.
“And I worked with these foreign engineers for eighteen years. I felt like I had mastered the art of road making, building bridges and so on. And I feel very sad that despite the fact that the hierarchy of MID know who we are, they simply ignored us.
“This is because when we are given contracts, it was on the merits of our experience, technical capacity and resources. Today, we have been ignored because we do not pay people to give us contracts. It is money talk,” he said.
The man cited an example involving an engineer who has since passed on.
“I won a contract valued at $11 million to construct a provincial ring road. With variations in the contract, the final sum of the contract was $13 million,” he said.
A young engineer who was in charge at the time told me that I must pay him $50, 000 first before the contract was awarded. I refused. It so happened that I won the contract so he approached me again and mentioned that when I have received my payment I need to pay him $250, 000 in kickbacks and a further $150, 000 to his offside,” the man said.
“I simply refused. In what seems like a payback, I was red-marked by MID. From 2011, I have never been awarded a new contract by MID, although they knew I have the expertise, engineering skills and experience,” the man said.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is happening at the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) even today. This is why our urban roads are in disrepair because MID simply selects business people who have the capacity to make regular payments to officials,” he said.
“What is happening in MID is that who has the capacity to pay officials determines who gets road maintenance contracts in Honiara as well as in other provincial centres. It is a sad state of affairs,” he said.
The man said private companies being hired to carry out road maintenance particularly in Honiara is a good example of a huge waste of taxpayers’ money.
“What I mean is this. They fix pothole today but if there were rain overnight, the pothole simply returned. Now you begin to wonder how on earth these companies were selected in the first place.
“It simply shows a lack of quality workmanship, technical know-how and the experience in road maintenance. It is a waste of taxpayers’ money. It is certainly not value for money at all,” he said.
By Alfred Sasako
Newsroom, Honiara
