‘We have not selected a Chinese company for airport project’- Neil M. Smith
According to Mr Smith, a formal contract has not been awarded as Government is in the process of negotiating with CCCC with a view of reaching a contractual agreement, suggesting that some persons actually believe a contract has been awarded.
There have been lots of criticisms after Cabinet voted on CCCC as the preferred bidder for the airport contract instead of IDL/McAlpine Consortium, a story first and accurately reported by this news site on December 22, 2016 that the Chinese company was the preferred bidder.
The bid advanced by CCCC was $153,432,572.10 and IDL-McAlpine $198,910,525.00.
In fact, the Cabinet set up a committee with three Ministers, Hons Smith, Kedrick D. Pickering (R7) and Mark H. Vanterpool (R4), to drive the process of the airport. Added to that, officials from CCCC were in the Virgin Islands recently and met with the group of Ministers.
Gov’t negotiating with CCCC
“Government has decided to negotiate with the Chinese. They have not selected them [for the contract],” Mr Smith told Virgin Islands News Online.
The Financial Secretary also came to the defence of Minister for Education and Culture Hon Myron V. Walwyn (AL) who said on the Morning Ride Show on February 2, 2017 that Government had not made a decision on the airport project.
Hon Walwyn had said “….I have raised certain concerns which will remain private at this time, but the government has not made a decision as yet on the matter, so I do not want to preempt that…,” when Mr Peart asked him about the airport project.
“Government made a decision to select the preferred bidder to negotiate with. The Minister is not contradicting the Premier. He is not. We have not selected a Chinese company, rather we have decided to negotiate with them,” Mr Smith contended.
Government in a press release on December 27, 2017 confirming our story about the Chinese company being selected as the preferred bidder, stated that “negotiations will now get underway with the preferred Bidder with a view to concluding a contractual agreement within 3 months which delivers the right outcome for the people of this Territory.”
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26 Responses to “‘We have not selected a Chinese company for airport project’- Neil M. Smith”
This current Government is the Worst Government we ever had to deal with in the History of Our Virgin Islands. We have to take whatever they say with a spoon of salt. By this time they finish with us, we all will be suffering with high blood pressure. Why can't they just tell us the TRUTH on anything? Why?
The Chinese company doing the airport is too much of an economic drain on our country at this time. If they going to be awarded with anything part of the contract right now, it should be as project overseers, engineering and logistic expertise, specialist workers, etc., with a great percentage of our people working along with them. The coordination of supplies, equipments, and other needed resources should be coordinated and source by our local companies. We need that money circulating in our economy - not the biggest portion (and we know that it will certainly end-up much higher than initial bid) outsource to other countries, wherever they are headquartered.
We cannot afford at this time to continue operating how we have been operating for so many years - our business model should be about assertively sustaining our country's economy and trapping as much money as we can inside our country in this turbulent time in history.
We need to start collaborating and working collectively and put aside all the greed, politics, and special favours if we ever intend to continue living our comfortable lifestyles here in the Virgin Islands.
Not all that glitter is golds; it can tarnish in the long run. Take heed.
This project was not advertised as a low, responsible and responsive bid contract. An invitation for bid/request for proposal (RFP) was issued. In response to the RFP, CCCC and IDL McAlphine companies were short listed. Of the two, CCCC was SELECTED to negotiate with. This was not a low bid contract, for these types of capital projects are not typically awarded on low bid, though the low bidder may end up with the contract. This type of contract is based on qualification, experience, capacity...........etc. For this project, government decides to select CCCC to negotiate with but it could have easily have selected IDL McAlphine though their bid was higher at $198M relative to CCCC's $153M.