Brian Goldson, the quantity surveyor for the controversial Sandals White-house hotel project, gave a stout defence of his professional and personal integrity at Tuesday's meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.
Mr. Goldson (of the firm, Goldson, Barrett, Johnson), reading from a prepared document, asserted that his firm was not responsible for any 'cost overrun', contrary to the impression he said had been given in the audit committee's report on the project. He listed three items of reported over-pricing, which he said were unfairly attributed to his firm. These included an additional US$500,000 for marl, US$1.8 million for concrete and US$390,000 for steel.
This allegation of overpricing, he said, was "very unprofessional and I refute totally!" Furthermore, he claimed, the statement (attributed to Jeremy Brown of Implementation Limited) "seemed to have been designed more to cast aspersions on my professional ability than to provide any facts."
Still unaccounted for
Mr. Goldson told the PAC that, of the final cost of US$113 million for the hotel, he could account for US$85,546,420 in the project's
final account. The remaining US$28,053,580, he said, was made up of the land cost (US$3,700,000) and a range of administrative and professional fees, among other items. These items, he said, were the responsibility of the Urban Develop-ment Corporation.
The veteran quantity surveyor told the PAC that, from the time of appointment as quantity surveyor for the project on July 5, 2000, his firm prepared several budgets, each time, in response to requests for revisions from the developers. A budget of US$70 million was "revisited and tweaked in May 2002, giving a total of US$70,493,350," he reported.
In September 2002, the quantity surveyors commended preparation of the requisite Bills of Quantities, based on the developed drawings (still without some details) that had been received up to that time.
Upward adjustments were made reflecting additional costs, based on information subsequently provided up to October 2004, for a range items, he said.
The cost of the first 12 of these items increased by US$13,973,151, while the rest went up by US$172,000. Labour costs increased by US$5,579,423 over the life of the project.
