Many challenges in construction boom

The construction boom with government intending to spend billions of dollars on major roadway and infrastructure projects, the building of schools, office space, tourism-related projects and sporting stadiums will pose serious challenges to the capacity of the economy and society to achieve and sustain.

Already the negative impacts are being felt in projects overrunning the construction period and shoddy work at high cost—as in the Scarborough hospital, the tarmac at the airport and the Diego Martin Highway—and one expects that soon enough the Uriah Butler-Churchill Roosevelt Overpass will encounter many of the problems characteristic of a period such as the one we are deeply into.

Minister Imbert has been making an argument that a small group of contractors is overloaded and not able to perform. In many instances there is said to be an increasing shortage of building material, not only from local sources but, with India and China in a growth spurt utilising massive quantities of materials for vast territory and 2.6 billion people as a total population, material is short internationally and in such circumstances prices are obviously escalating.

Beyond the reported incapacity of local contractors to handle in a timely and efficient manner the many multi-million-dollar projects coming their way is the inadequacy of the local construction trades.

Yes, this Government has had training programmes and apprenticeships to gear-up young people to enter the industry, as the Tertiary Level Education Minister was eager to point out, but the requirements are far beyond that. Not only are the young ones needed to work on the construction projects, but in even shorter supply are the experienced tradesmen with a lifetime of work behind them. That kind of trained and experienced tradesman cannot be had through six-month training programmes, but because of 25 and 30 years of hands-on work on project sites.

The next stop for such tradesmen within Caricom could return limited results as Minister Imbert acknowledged at this week’s post-cabinet news conference that a building boom is also taking place in the region on the cricket stadiums and to repair the destruction of succeeding hurricane seasons.

The logical option would then be to contract the expertise at the top levels of the construction industry from abroad and so too workers at the trades level. At the same time, however, thousands of young people and older ones too remain idle and open to taking another, not so acceptable route to putting money in their pockets.

The Government also has to be careful in contracting outside assistance to deliver on its promises to the population. It cannot run the risk of bringing in large numbers of contractors and workers, effectively exporting the bonus from the country’s gas and oil resources while leaving its home base unattended. It is going to be a critical balancing act.

Just as challenging for the Government, given the nature and character of the polity of T&T, is the need to achieve balance in the internal distribution of the wealth. It cannot be acceptable that any one segment benefits to the detriment of others.

In reality it means that projects have to be sited in as widely dispersed areas of the political and ethnic geography as possible, and that if Government is to embark on a project of taking people from parts of the country to the worksites, then those people have to come from Laventille, Preysal, Cumuto and La Brea, to provide a few examples.

In all of the scheduling of work programmes, the consideration of avoiding the boom of the 1970s when the economy overheated and costs and prices went through the roof has to be foremost in the minds of the planners and those who operationalise the projects.

In the same manner that poverty has its challenges, so too does having an abundance of public funds to spend require contemplation.