Conflict lingers over power plant contract
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from April 1996.
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There is now a discrepancy as to whether Noell Inc, Krupp MaK, the contractors, and CIDESA Group International Inc., the previous subcontractors, are locked in a law suit.
A press release from CIDESA was sent to local media recently stating that CIDESA, which has formed a company in Cayman called America Power Services Ltd., had filed a law suit against Noell Inc for $2,991,593 for nonpayment of invoices totaling more than $600,000 in regards to the CUC plant project.
Mr. Fred Everly, project manager for Noell Inc., said that while he has received letters from CIDESA about a possible law suit, nothing has been filed. However, Mr. Jose Molina, president of CIDESA, said the suit has been filed and the appropriate papers should have been given to Noell late last week.
A press release from CUC said "The 1996/97 Plant Expansion Programme has been delayed due to contract administration difficulties between the contractor consortium and the major subcontractor."
The first of the two new engines, which are being built in the project, will not be available until later this year, said the release, and in the meantime CUC will be installing a four megaWatt solar gas turbine.
Mr. Molina said his company was being used as a "scape-goat". Noell Inc. dismissed CIDESA saying the company did not get the work done on time, he said.
However, Mr. Molina said, work was slowed because the plans from Noell Inc. were not received until late. He said the foundation drawings were the only plans they had received before Christmas. Engineering drawings, he said, were not completed and delivered to CIDESA until January.
"Basically we could not go forward on the project... They never supply us with any of the information we needed or requested," he said. "They kicked us out of the project using us as a scapegoat."
A spokesperson with Hadsphaltic, which has been working on the project for a few weeks, said "to date everything is going well."
The US$18.5 million CUC expansion began to experience delays in December when protests from about 30 members of the Society of Caymanian Builders and Contractors (SCBC) against the hiring of Mexican workers by CIDESA led to work being stopped on the site. Negotiations that finished in January led to SCBC workers being hired.
