Government is looking to address with urgency, structural issues at the Public Works Corporation (PWC) which will assist in making the corporation function more efficiently.
In recent times, there have been concerns about what could be regarded as waste by the PWC of Government’s resources.
Public works Minister Rayburn Blackmoore told members of the media this week, that efforts are underway to ensure greater accountability by the PWC.
“I am aware that a business plan has been completed and submitted, where we are looking at all the weaknesses and the strengths to see how we can correct the weaknesses in moving forward. I believe that it is in the interest of the country to ensure that we have a Public Works Corporation that is effective and we have to work together to ensure that this is done,” he said.
“I have been advised that in terms of the outstanding payments, that has been met. If we do not look at the structural issues at the Public Works that issue will be reoccurring,” Blackmoore continued.
The Public Works minister said that all the debt of the PWC is guaranteed by the state and with this in mind, it is in the interest of the state and the country to ensure that it functions efficiently.
“Our efforts are directed at ensuring that there is accountability and ensuring that when any company is paid to patch a road, it is patched properly,” noted Minister Blackmoore. “A contract should not be partially executed and expected to be paid in full.”
The Minister is hoping that staff at the PWC will adopt a more professional approach to their work.
“We are looking at a situation whereby persons can get the sense that when they go out to work, they have the mindset of a contractor,” Blackmoore noted. “Within that mindset, they have to go out and do the work to the highest degree of efficiency and speed.”
The Minister suggested that the issue of output is very important.
“It’s something that has to be paid by the public, so the public has to get value for money. We have to ensure that we put systems in place to ensure that when a contract is entered into between the state and any contractor that the state gets value for money,” emphasized Minister Blackmoore.
The PWC is directed by a board which was recently appointed by the Minister.
Recently, former manager of the Waitukubuli National Trail Project, Eddie Henry, was appointed to run the affairs of the PWC on a two- year contractual basis in the first instance.
The PWC currently has 113 members of staff.
I would so like to see mister salute….that hand have to go WAYYYYYYYYY back to where the hairline starting.. LMAO
Public works should be given a chance to have its own quarry at Layou so it would be able to sustain itself financially through the sale of sand and aggregate. The corporation should also get involved in the sale of cement and steel. Too many private individual quarries at Layou.
It is not roads alone. PWC engineers are expected to work miracles with machine tools that should have been put on the scrap heap years ago.
Is it true that it was agreed to sell the Public Works site to chinese interests for $5 million whereas the Govt. own valuation officer rated it at $7.5 million?
And is it true that no alternative site has been found yet to relocate Public Works?
Does Govt. just want Public Works to collapse and so rid them of a headache?
blackmoore, blackmoore, blackmoore…. i really cannot see how you can fool me, but you still manage to fool alot
Mr blackmore need I remind you sir was the one responsible for appointing the general manager and the board responsible for running the PUblic works coperation so how is it that you want to blame the. Lil workers. Them.
What I hearing there. Mr blackmore come better tn that pwc working a lot better than them so companies and when pwc shoul get jobs they are given to them lil. Contractors that do nonsense jobs
first time in the history of DOMINICA there is so much problem at public works. no responsible GOVERNMENT or investor will take this labour administration serious, if lets say a reputable institution
about to do business in DOMINICA like E D F and the main COMPANY in thr country is in such mess would you advise you company to trust the way RAYBUM BLACKMOORE run things??
Some of the same workers at PWC are the ones who put them there. They were all in red shouting “Thanks God for Skerrit”…I still sympathise with them.Hope they are smarter now than they were then.
Sometimes we have to hold ourselves accountable also, by accounting for the assets we accumulated in such short space of time.
Example; perhaps the public should know, where a former police officer who worked for less than a thousand dollars per month, in a short space of time on becoming a politician, and a government minister earning less than three thousand dollars per month came by millions of dollars to build a million dollar house!
Can you sir, Mr. Minister shed some light on that?
Can you tell us how much was borrowed from any bank in Dominica to build that huge house!
Francisco Etienne-Dods Telemaque
And by the way I doh talking about Skerrit house eh, I talking about de EX-police house.
FET.
A country like ours will never prosper. The majority will remain poor. We will remain the poorest island in the OECS, and one of the poorest in the Caribbean. Corruption and poverty goes hand in hand.
Hahahaha yes I Rayburn is them Chinese that patching and paving De road and making drains so what kind of accountability u talking about Allu socre sac ou la ou van sahbou
`How much work did Public Works, our local Co., get on the millions of dollars Portsmouth to Roseau rehabilitation works? No Dominican would be employed on that big project if the patriots did not consistently express their concerns for locals to at least bite a bread too.
The Canefield to Melville Hall road rehab works, as well, PWC was cast out. PWC, even with its new Asphalt Plant, didn’t even get the contract to provide asphalt to those projects. Gardakhan got everything. It was that same Minister who glibly talked of breach of contract by the foreign Co., but was still awarded Phase 11 of the road project.
It is felt by most Dominicans that Govt./Minister, through lack of foresight and incompetence, have been the cause for the sorry plight of PWC. PWC has served Dominica well, building roads, not only rehabilitation, in rugged, remote areas of Dominica. In times of natural disasters, PWC have been on the ball. Workers have risked their lives to clear slides and doing all kinds of road works. Our local PWC cut and built the Petite Savanne to Delices road. Forget?
Now is a different style of governance with Skerritt and his DLP, as they fool the people in supporting policies of increased poverty, handouts, begging, red clinic.
Instead of putting things in place to strengthen PWC, to enable the local Co. to make money, create more jobs, pay its employees, grow, so as to continue carrying out its useful role in the development of Dominica, We see stumbling blocks, lack of work for PWC in major projects. Shame!!! Shame!!!! Shame!!!!!
PWC workers have problems with pay. Unemployment rising. Economy in shambles. A few, however, are getting rich, wealth/ assets for so, while the majority are getting poorer and poorer. But who cares?
Oh yeh blame PWC – this lame a$$$$ government has spent 13 years blaming everything and everyone else but themselves for the failures in almost every sector.
Blackmoore who blew the budget for the Belles Roadway and why was the project not completed at the end of 2012 as you promised.
Who own the company that hijack contracts from Public Works?………..The PWC workers know what is going on and when a few staff members ask questions they are told to mind their nw business else the door will hit them in the back.
When The children will choose to rise up we the adults will sit at home in shame and guilt knowing that we deliberately facilitated these band of outlaw cowboys to run our government. The diasporans planning to vote again for ths corrupt regime karma is a bitch.
Mr blackmore there are some reliable and efficient workers at the pwc that put ther all and very best in what ever they do, th guys can work ,there are projects the pwc under took that woul not be done any better by certain contractors, the guys are willing to work they can work but there are some who feel they want to run the pwc by interfering in others work or job while they cant handle ther own job and some people in the top bracket a hand full of them think of them selves only, while they do nothing for the thousands of dollars they are paid, treat workers better some of those so called square pegs in wrong holes who just sit or walk about doing nothing for the whole day and always keep reporting to work late , but still trying to screw up those under them
It was this government, in establishing the PWC as a corporation, that left the corporation saddled with a huge debt. ON top of that, the Govt is excluding the PWC from public works and the new aphsalt plant purchased some years for PWC has not been operationalized. The PWC is a public corporation; the government must demonstrate managerial leadership in ensuring that it is a viable entity.
The minister asking government workers to actually do some work and to top it off he wants them to be efficient?
Is this a coincident or Blackmoore really follows the UWP Senator for the Mahaut Constituency, Ronnie Isidore. Only this morning Ronnie spoke to Matt criticising Blackmoore for his lack of representation of the Mahaut constituency and Public Works.Ronnie Isidore also memtioned that wherever in the constituency he traveles to meet the people Blackmoore would follow with promises. Ronnie could be right,because Public Works has been in the news for weeks,all of a sudden, Blackmoore has now come to the realization that Public Works has issues,great job Mr. Ronnie Isidore.
whe papa. So a government took a decision to set up the corporation, didn’t put thing in place properly but now they blaming the corporation for failures which they the gov’t are responsible for. This thing was set up to put money in the pockets of skerritt’s supporters, so mr minister be transperent and tell the public what was the original aim of the corporation.
Accountability u say?
Like de road works at Antrim that already making potholes? But dat was not a PWC job. Is ur pardna dat get dat job. And he well paid too.
Accountability u say?
And u only just recently appointed a Board of Directors?
Government CANNOT pay workers yet have the audacity to talk about effectiveness. NO donkeys must work for nothing!!Whhen allu sit on allu high horse getting pay checks, what happen to the little people struggling to put food on the table. We Blackmore take your salary and pay dem!!!
When will we citizens have greater accountability from Govt?
When we vote them out and only then they will come to understand that we the people have the power to make changes ,