The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Urban Renewal’s Small Homes repair programme was overseen by an unqualified quantity surveyor who admitted to being used to “rubber stamp” completion certificates for unverified construction work.

The Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) majority report on the programme, finally tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday, found that Lisa Tucker and her CCMG Consultants firm met their contractual obligations “mostly in the breach, rather than their observance”.

The report, signed by its three FNM members, said the issuance of completion certificates, without any checks to ensure construction work had been properly performed, potentially compromised the health and safety of the very persons the programme was designed to help - low income Bahamian homeowners and tenants.

The trio of MPs, Hubert Chipman, K P Turnquest and Richard Lightbourn, added that this also exposed the Government to potential liability, and showed that the Small Homes repair initiative did not deliver “value for money” to the Bahamian taxpayer.

Detailing the findings from their September 17, 2015, meeting with Ms Tucker, the majority report said she was “constantly pressured” by Urban Renewal Commission and Ministry of Works personnel to override “accepted best practice” in the construction industry.

The report quoted Ms Tucker as saying: “I resented all of the pressure being deployed against me by people like Ricardo Smith, and I sent an e-mail in protest.

“I work in an orderly fashion, and they expected me to ‘rubber stamp’ everything.”

As a result, the PAC’s FNM members concluded: “The witness admitted to being nothing more than a ‘rubber stamp’, and claimed she was constantly pressured by staff at Urban Renewal, specifically Ricardo Smith, and other personnel at the Ministry of Works to issue completion certificates without the benefit of having done site inspections for various projects.

“She said that Mr Smith habitually sat in her office until the certificates of completion were signed. It is clear in this case that the Bahamian taxpayer and the homeowners concerned did not receive value for money spent.”

The majority PAC report said Mr Smith had been “seconded” to the Snall Homes repair programme from the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC), where he had been working as ‘a consultant’.

Mr Smith was then placed in charge “of all contracts involving social services and the Centreville constituency”, whose MP is Prime Minister Perry Christie, a move that the three FNM members branded as “unusual”.

“The PAC [majority] found it unusual for a consultant from BAIC, with no known expertise in construction or project management, to be seconded to Small Home repairs and given specific charge over social services and the Centreville area,” the trio wrote.

“The PAC noted several cases of deficient work in these areas, including two homes that were repaired when it was obvious that the buildings were uninhabited and abandoned.”

Ms Tucker and her company, who were hired on October 15, 2013, as quantity surveyor for the Small Homes repair initiative, were to act as the programme’s main ‘check and balance’.

Their contract, according to the majority PAC report, required them to determine all the defects in homes to be repaired, and estimate the likely construction cost incurred for each.

Ms Tucker and CCMG were also to undertake physical site inspections before and after work was completed at each house, with the latter to be conducted prior to the issuance of a completion certificate and final payment to the contractor.

“The committee found that all of these undertakings were honoured mostly in the breach, rather than the observance,” the FNM majority’s report said.

In particular, they zeroed in on a house identified in the Auditor General’s report on the Small Homes Repair initiative, which was located at Royal Palm Street in Centreville.

Despite being “uninhabited and unlivable”, because the property had no windows or doors, Urban Renewal authorised that it be given a new roof - without curing all the existing defects.

“Ms Tucker did believe that it was her job to consider whether this was a sensible use of public money,” the majority PAC report said. “She felt her remit constrained her to an assessment of whether or not the roof was properly erected.”

The report added that Ms Tucker was a mortgage broker and ex-banker by profession, and admitted to the PAC that while she had taken the quantity surveying course, “she is not qualified”.

“She could not recall how she came to be engaged by the Urban Renewal Commission,” the majority FNM members’ report said, implying that responsibility for accurately verifying and controlling costs,and ensuring proper construction, was placed into the hands of an unqualified person without any experience.

The danger here is that the Small Homes repair programme, and by extension the Bahamian taxpayer, were exposed to potential abuses including fraud, corruption and contractor rake-offs.

Besides inflated costs for the taxpayer, the very homeowners and residents the Urban Renewal programme was meant to assist may also have suffered from shoddy workmanship.

Ms Tucker told the PAC that qualified quantity surveyors were employed as “part-time consultants”, who “worked on weekends” on an ‘as needed’ basis.

Their qualifications were not presented to the PAC, but Ms Tucker said CCMG’s contract was “orally varied” in December 2013 so that Small Renewal sent out its own inspectors, Clifford Moss and Oswald Pinder. CCMG’s fees were reduced as a result by 50 per cent, from $600 to $300 per home.

“Ms Tucker admitted that she never satisfied herself that the designated inspectors from Urban Renewal were properly qualified, yet she signed ‘completion certificates’ on the basis of before and after photos produced by these individuals without a physical inspection of the homes,” the majority report said.

“The PAC finds that she did this without regard to the rights or safety of homeowners and occupants of any of these homes, as she must have known that there were potential liability issues with respect to these third parties.”

The majority reported concluded that Ms Tucker “appeared incredibly naive and obviously unqualified” for the task she was hired for.

“CCMG lacked independence and was directed to approve completion statements for a number of unsatisfactorily completed projects based upon photograph of unverified origin,” it concluded.

“As a result of this critical breach in accepted best practice, many projects were completed with dissatisfaction to the property owners. There were also many misunderstandings by home owners as to the scope of works to be completed, also resulting in dissatisfaction.

“Additionally, projects which did not meet the stated guidelines were completed without regard to the most effective use of public funds.”