PROJECT: construction of a parochial school in Port Margot, Haiti MANAGER: local pastor SPONSOR: parish in Nashville, TN STATUS: still under construction after more than 2 years PROBLEM: contractor was requesting an additional $35,000 to complete the
project
HERO ACTION STEPS:
PROJECT REVIEW: At the request of Our Lady of the Lakes, HERO President
Ted Waldbart and the owner of ARCOSA, a local construction company in Haiti,
met in Port au Prince for a day and a half with the original contractor and the
pastor from Port Margot. The contractor ultimately decided he didn’t want his
work to be reviewed and withdrew from the project.
PLANNING: HERO, ARCOSA and the pastor defined the steps needed to finish
the project and began drawing up plans for completion.
COMPLICATION: ARCOSA had previously visited the unfinished school and
had been threatened with reprisals if it tried to take over the project.
SOLUTION: HERO arranged for the pastor to serve as the lead project manager and
arranged for ARCOSA to work behind the scenes. An ARCOSA engineer would help
the pastor set up all hiring and purchasing, then visit every two weeks to
monitor progress on the project and assist with the payroll (lack of payroll
management is a leading cause of construction budget overruns in Haiti).
CONTRACTS: HERO, ARCOSA and the parish in Nashville signed binding
contracts.
PROJECT RELAUNCH: Construction was restarted with HERO/ARCOSA/pastor
working with the subcontractors.
COMPLICATION: The pastor fell ill with typhoid and was hospitalized for
weeks. During this time, concrete and wiring were stolen from the construction
site and the project was temporarily shut down.
SOLUTION: A team from the Nashville parish traveled to Haiti and
arranged for ARCOSA to take over the project entirely after getting buy-in from
pastor.
COST CONTROL: ARCOSA’s bid was $18,000, half the amount requested by the
original contractor.
SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION: Despite all the complications, the project was
completed within the new $18,000 budget and only slightly behind the revised
timeline. The sponsoring parish in Nashville was pleased with the results.
Most importantly, the children of Port Margot, Haiti have a new, well-built
school. If HERO had been engaged at the inception of the school construction,
conservatively the construction would have been completed 2 years earlier and
the savings would have been approximately 35%.
