By Silbert Barrett
Kingston, Jamaica – Here is a link to the copy of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Jamaica and China.
Here is the big mistake in this MOU. Section 6. Project Financing. If the Government of Jamaica (GoJ) is the owner and Project Manager then it is not the Chinese who should do the design drawings or determine the budget. This is the height of mediocrity in a major development project involving a sophisticated developer.
To ensure value for money there should be a design development stage where a third party design consulting team (Architectural and Engineering) works with UDC and the Chinese to carry out design development process from construction programming to schematics to concept, to preliminary and final design development within the framework of an established budget.
China cannot do the design and establish the budget at the same time. This is a big no no in project cost management. The budget and cost must be managed from the programming state to final design document.
The government needs to hire third party Architects and Engineering Consultants to work as a team with the Chinese and UDC with a budget established by the GoJ not by the Chinese.
View presentation on Total Value Management in a public private partnership
