Jean-Baptiste Riviere, project manager for Fluids Water Management International, an associated Sogea Satom company, holds a citation designating the Great River/Lucea Water Supply Project as 'Engineering Project of the Year' by the Jamaican Institution of Engineers, November 2005. - File
Sogea Satom has scored another multimillion water contract here, this time for $1.5 billion, to pump life into the existing creaky distribution systems across Spanish Town and other areas of south-east St. Catherine under the near decade-old KMA Water Supply project.
The contract is yet to be formally awarded, but with the National Contracts Commission giving its endorsement in July, all that remains are the formalities.
"We're just now moving to major construction," said Charles Buchanan, head of corporate communications for National Water Commission, the state agency spearheading the near decade-old project.
The Kingston Metropolitan Area project has been ongoing since 1997, but so far its main features have been research and tests to determine how wide the scope of works needs to be.
The Sogea contract, which is the first construction job, with others to come later, according to Buchanan, sets a new record as the largest 'rehabilitation' of an existing system to be undertaken in Jamaica's history.
Fourth big deal
It's the French construction firm's fourth big engineering deal with the NWC in about eight years - its latest being the ongoing US$40 million Martha Brae Supply scheme in Trelawny; its first the US$20 million Lucea/Negril Water Treatment System at Logwood, Hanover.
In between, Sogea has expanded the Great River/Lucea System, a euro38.8-million job completed in 2004, and has signed on as a 'partner' to work alongside NWC to reduce water losses, under a new water management plan being tested by the commission that requires the firm to post a bond that it forfeits if its falls below set targets.
"In this case, it is a genuine partnership," said Buchanan. "They stand to lose."
Sogea has put up a US$2.5 million bond that is tantamount to a wager that it can slim wastage of water on the state agency's distribution lines.
The French firm did not respond to phone and emailed queries made from last week.
But NWC president EG Hunter said his agency has given the firm three years to slice 15 per cent off the volumes of water lost in the north western parishes of Trelawny, St James, Hanover and parts of Westmoreland.
No revenues from some
NWC estimated in a six-month audit that it was earning no revenues from 65 per cent of its supplies to those parishes - which account for some 50,000 customers - and has given Sogea 18-months to bring the loss from non-revenue water down to 50 per cent, and keep it at or below that level for three years.
Otherwise, said NWC president EG Hunter, Sogea will forfeit the US$2.5 million performance bond it was required to post.
"If they don't meet the criteria, the bond is ours," Hunter told Wednesday Business. But Hunter said he wants Sogea to succeed, noting that the estimated loss from non-revenue water (NRW) - defined as leaks and technical losses, as well as stolen water, and water that NWC is obliged to provide for free, for example, to fire hydrants - in the north western belt would be almost triple the bond, at US$8 million over the three years.
The KMA rehabilitation works for the area designated Lot One, which includes the laying of 19 kilometres of pipeline, still has to hurdle Cabinet and get final go-ahead from the finance ministry.
Parts of the pipeline network were built in 1970s, but some elements may be older, said Buchanan.
A $1.13 billion provision was made in the national budget for the project this fiscal year. The larger KMA project is joint financed by the Japanese, US$60 million, and Government of Jamaica, US$24 million.
- lavern.clarke@gleanerjm.com
