GAP-WPA says that the government had enough information at its disposal to avoid the waste of public funds on the collapsed East Demerara Water Conservancy Dam (EDWC) but no one took the trouble.

The Guyana Action Party-Working People's Alliance (GAP-WPA) expressed this view in a statement issued on March 21 on the findings of the report into the EDWC breach. The party said the report showed a professional approach to the investigation. The report listed a series of shortcomings by the contractor, engineer and the drainage board in the contract for the section of the EDWC which gave way on November 3rd last year, flooding the village of Cane Grove.

Cabinet is to today consider the report of the team which investigated the breach. The report was compiled by a five-man team appointed by President Bharrat Jagdeo to identify the causes of the breach and comprised Dr Harold Davis Jr, Paul Sarran, R B Lachmansingh, George Howard, and Lt Col John Lewis.

The breach occurred while emergency rehabilitation work, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was being carried out.

The probe team report was highly critical of the preparation for, and the execution and management of the emergency remedial works by the NDIB, the role of its chief executive who was the engineer for the project, and the contractor BK International, which carried out the contract under the supervision of the NDIB.

Stabroek News was unable to obtain a comment from the National Drainage and Irrigation Board (NDIB) or its Chief Executive Ravi Narine as calls about the report were referred to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture whom, it was said had to give permission for its officers to speak to the press.

The IDB was not in a position to comment with an official there telling Stabroek News that it would do so after the bank had had an opportunity to study the report, a copy of which it was yet to obtain.

BK International Ltd, which was carrying out the work when the breach occurred was up to yesterday still formulating its response to criticisms of the manner in which it executed the contract.

The GAP/WPA statement noted the probe team's observation about the work of the contractor and said he "stuck neither to his own submitted plan of work, nor to the mandatory Bills of quantities".

GAP/WPA observed that the public would be very interested "to observe BK's standing with the public sector and also what changes in contracting and execution codes will take place as a result of this helpful enquiry."

The GAP/WPA statement noted too "according to the findings, highly placed government entities and executives were lax in their management and oversight of the whole enterprise, and apparently unmindful of the cost to taxpayers of Guyana."

"The works were authorised and mandated by the National Drainage and Irrigation Board (NDIB), which did not consult the East Demerara Water Conservancy Board. Government had at its disposal enough documentation and technical information on the Conservancy Dam to avoid the hopeless waste of public funds, but no one took the trouble. The knee-jerk habit of handing things over to a successful contractor prevailed throughout."

The party called the decision to raise the level of the dam "ill- advised, on technical grounds, which the system was aware of, but which those directly in charge did not seek to know, or care to know."

"In brief, the Contractor BK violated his own plans, was not supervised and did not report as planned".

It noted that the "Commission found strong evidence that the materials used by the contractor to build the breached portion of the dam contained `extraneous' non- soil material, which rendered the structure less stable and made it an easy prey to changes in water levels and other influences."

"The President had said that those found to be at fault would pay. The public purse has a lot of money to recover", GAP-WPA added.