The Ministries of Government Support Services and Border Control and Labour are partnering with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in a bold initiative to promote national skill development among contractors within the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Under the programme, small and petty contractors will be trained in the use of a computerised job estimation tool (CJET) developed by the CDB through its Caribbean Technological Consultancy Services (CTCS) Network. A project coordinator has already been named and an ‘ad hoc’ committee established to advance plans for the workshop. Training is set to start in February 2013.
The CDB’s Caribbean CTCS Network has experience in working with Petty, Small and Medium Contractors in the Bank’s Borrowing Member Countries (BMC’s). They have consistently highlighted areas of weaknesses among this group, specifically with respect to their inability to accurately and reliability prepare job estimates ensuring that they are able to manipulate and present their bids; in particular the bill of quantities, in a manner to ensure competitive advantage.
TCIG’s support of the training comes against the need to level the playing field for small contractors who bid for work against larger and more structured business entities which have the capability to employ or hire the services of consultant engineers, quantity surveyors and accountants.
CJET will consequently give Petty, Small and Medium Contractors a better competitive advantage through the use of the simple but effective tool developed by the CTCS. It allows the small contractor to always know his finite cost as he progresses through preparation of each line item in the bill of quantities.
The tool also puts the contractors in position to determine and manipulate the quality of his bid, see the impact of given bid ratio/bid rate on the overall line cost and to anticipate the projected earnings in excess of each line cost. This capability, therefore, allows the contractor to intentionally bid high or low on given line item, while maintaining the option to spread any projected line losses over other items. To date, the CTCS Network has successfully trained over 300 petty, small and medium contractors in ten of Bank’s BMCs.
The Deputy Governor along with the ministers of GSS and BCL have pledged their commitment and support to this event.
More information on the workshop will be communicated in due course and will be posted on the websites at www.labour.tc or www.gov.tc.
