General Issues:

The current development budget favours the industry at P 10 billion expected to be spent this financial year, 2009-2010.  However, revision of the budget is expected depending on how long the recession is expected to last.

Issue of Bongs in lieu of Retention

Government has acceded to the ministry’s request for contractors to issue bonds in lieu of 10% retention being deducted from payment certificates.  This is expected to assist contractors with cash flow.

Reservation for Citizen Owned Companies

The reservation policy which has been in existence ha not been implemented for some time.  Following discussions with MWT it has been agreed that the policy should be implemented through the Project Allocation Committee formed for the implementation of Direct Appointment of Consultants.

Direct Appointment of Consultants

This policy was agreed with government and is currently being implemented with good results being achieved in terms of allocations.  However, commissioning of consultants still delays the process and improvements need to be effected to achieve the objective of reducing procurement lead times for consultants and overall implementation of projects.  To date projects have been allocated from DBES, TSD Ministry of Education, Ministry of Local Government (MLG) and BDF.  Of these only MLG has not commissioned any of the 38 projects taken to PAC.

Domestic and nominated Sub-contractors

Government has acceded to our request to use both Domestic and Nominated subcontractors.  They however request that we craft a form of agreement to be signed by the main contractor and the nominated sub-contractor that the two parties shall solve all their disputes with minimum, if any, the involvement of the client.