DR. ANSLEM LA TOUCHE

Mr. La Touche earlier this year in an interview the barnacle had done with Mr. Andrew Bierzynski, indicated to us that Creative Designs would be constructing this facility. Why are you taking down your structures today?

We are moving the structures because we are not the contractors on the job anymore. As I told you before I had gotten unofficial communication that the developers were negotiating with Chinese and that was totally unofficial.  To date as you can see from the signboard we were supposed to be the contractors.

But you were not only supposed to be the contractors, you have started work on the site. How much work have you done, how many men have you employed here, how much have you put out to date?

Well we have put out a substantial amount of money, the figures I wouldn’t like to disclose at this point but as you can see we did measure excavation on the site started doing the roads, mobilized the site, brought in management and workers for the site.
During the operation we had over 40 workers who started working on the site with the view that the project would have finally employed over 200 persons. We were geared up and mobilized for that.

The Grand Harbour representative indicated that the Chinese presented a figure and that they asked you to come back to the negotiating table to reduce your figure or to match the Chinese. How do you comment on that?

I have had no such communication with the developers. We have never known about the Chinese. The only communication I had about the Chinese is when we submitted our figures and we weren’t getting a response, I made request for a response in a timely manner and that was the only time I heard that there was a Chinese contractor on board.
I was informed at that point in time that because of the price I had quoted for the job they had issued the job to another competitor.
I asked the question, who is the competitor and they said the Chinese. That was the first time that I knew officially that there were Chinese players involved.
We were doing a negotiated contract as a design/ build project, it was not just a building contract to go and build a building.
As a design/build we employed other consultants like architects and engineers to work on the job.

I know that you were given a letter speaking about the state of affairs, were you given an opportunity to submit a new costing, was there room for negotiation, what happened since you got the letter?

Well that was the end of it. We were told that they have chosen to hire another contractor and we were fired from the site, that they would honor their side of the Memorandum of understanding since we had some mechanism in place in case the project didn’t go ahead or in case we didn’t build the project for some reason or the other.
As I said we moved on site in good faith, in good spirit and there was no real spirit of negotiation after we submitted out price it seemed like fait accompli.

With what guarantee did you commence work on the project? What gave you the assurance that things are proceeding well so you have the green light to go ahead?

Well the developer gave us an undertaking via a Memorandum of Understanding that we are negotiating a contract and we have been meeting, talking and discussing the project through the design stage and through the development of the project.
There was that sort of working relationship that one develops with a customer that he is working with. You have a MOU how you are going to get there and you are working towards it.

The men involved in the project do you have projects to absorb them or are they unemployed as of today?

They were unemployed before today, because the project stopped before now. Yes, the guys have no way of getting employment with us at this point in time because we do not have opportunities to offer them.
We tried earlier in the year to juggle some of them around and send to other projects but that was a short term measure. Most of the guys now are at home.

How many workers are at stake, what is it that you stand to lose and where does this matter go from here?

About 40 workers were directly employed at the site including management.
It is a great loss of revenue. It threatens our main operation because of the fact of the management we brought in and the monies we would have earned in terms of profit and overheads, we have lost that income.
Because of the confidentiality clause in the project we cannot disclose the monies that we were charging but I can tell you substantially right now that we are thinking of reducing as a matter of fact, our office size and so forth because I haven’t seen any other real projects in Grenada right now despite the talk about the number of projects on the ground.
As you know Chinese will be dealing with the other projects that are on the ground except for one.

How do you see this putting the construction industry in Grenada?

I can measure from what we have inside Creative Designs. From inside Creative Designs, our work force is going to be shrunken and the people who have been depending on us for years, working with us on/off or working with us permanently, our core work group would have to be reduced until there is work again on the ground.   
As you know construction work is not continuous and we have actually removed ourselves from opportunities to do this project.
There were other opportunities coming and we said we have a commitment to this project so we wouldn’t stretch ourselves further than we think we have to resources for.

Are you getting the Grenada Construction Association involved?

Yes we will be communicating with the construction association, our thoughts on the matter, seeking their support in terms of trying to bring some order to the industry.
As I said before the playing field is no longer level and you understand the opportunities on the ground for developers to choose who they want to do their work.
You can’t tell a developer who to choose to do their work so if they have a situation where they can get advantages as they can get from using Chinese labor they will choose to do that for their own competitiveness in terms of the project itself and their own profitability.

I am aware that the Barbados government was forced to intervene in a similar situation between their own construction sector and the same Chinese labor. Do you intend to press government on that case?

We have a construction association and I would prefer to operate within the authority of the construction association. When we meet and I engage them the executive will decide how we move forward.

Are you satisfied that you are justly compensated, are you negotiating for just compensation and will this matter make it to the High Court?

We have reached that stage we are not in real argument at this point. We are in the stage of executing the MOU and coming to a final account. We haven’t seen to feel that there will be any breach in that particular contract which is clear and we think that they are honorable enough to satisfy it.
I am not looking for it to reach the courts and I don’t think that it will reach there. My biggest issue is we are now forced to compete in a marketplace where the plying field is not level.

Being compensated via the MOU is not the way you would have liked to make money on this project. You would have liked to put the Creative Design touch that shows that we have the ability, isn’t that so?

Yes, that is one we would have like to do that. The other we were very keen on the project and what we did for that project I can tell you, the strategy was to make money really and truly but because of the fact that the project in itself is on a difficult site, the developers have already priced the project in terms of selling it to buyers so we just wanted to make them successful, break even if possible on that project and employ our guys.

The other day when we spoke to you before you received the letter you said that the use of Chinese labor as against Grenadian labor is an act of betrayal. Do you hold that view more strongly now?

Yes I hold that view much more strongly now especially when the private sector chooses to go through that medium.