On Friday - you heard M&M engineer Roque Matus allege that a foreign firm had stolen his design for the Belcan Bridge and sold it to the Belize City council so that contractors could bid on its construction. Since then, there's been a flurry of words written and said by lawyers and engineers about this entire bridge project.
Last night we traced how - for the very first time - a bridge project left the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and ended up in the hands of a municipality. And tonight, we'll look at the provenance and progression of Matus's design from MIDH to City Hall and then to an engineering consultant from Lebanon.
They say they operated professionally and legally, Roque Matus claims differently. Here are both sides of the argument:
Roque Matus, M&M Engineering
"This is about taking a design and plagiarizing it, that's what's it about. And collecting 400 thousand US dollars to plagiarize it, okay!"
Jules Vasquez
"If it is the case, it certainly gives us moment to pause, because then that would mean that a foreign company is working with the design of a local company."
But, what if it isn't?
In a letter from their attorney, Turba Consultants says the company "was aware that the Initial Design were prepared by M & M but understood that the ownership thereof lay with the Government of Belize and or Belize City Council." It adds that Turba did provide to the Belize City Council the design that Matus complains about along with the calculation notes necessary for completion of the tendering process and construction of the Project." It goes on to say, Turba acknowledges that it provided a detailed design based on the Initial Design, (however it) was always of the view that it was entitled to use and manipulate the Initial Design as it understood the Initial Design to be the property of GOB and or BCC.
Jules Vasquez
"A functionary from the Ministry of Economic Transformation, as it is now called, told me that, well, the government paid M&M or his contracting agent for this design and it then becomes theirs. They can do with it as they wish."
Voice of: Julius Espat, Minister - MIDH/Architect
"Yes, that is true, but you can't put your stamp on it and say that you did it. That's the only difference."
They say that they did ask they City Council for "detailed design documents with calculations and Good for Construction drawings" - but these were not provided and "at the request of GOB, proposed to supply these additional elements to the Initial Design along with the necessary calculations. BCC later accepted my client's offer to expand its scope of work to complete the above."
Turba's attorney says its client was not even aware that M & M Engineering laid claim to the ownership of the Initial Design until they saw him on TV.
They say it is, quote, "not the case that (Turba Consultants) knowingly breached Belize Copyright Laws or knowingly stole the Initial Design." Speaking or Matus, their lawyer ads, "The fact that my client produced the Impugned Design, after running their own calculations, basing it on the Initial Design did not entitle you to make unwarranted and expansive attacks against its reputation."
They say Channel 7, quote, "sensationalize(d) a matter that has an innocuous explanation…and wrongly concluded that Turba's bridge design was the product of intentional wrongdoing.
So, there it is - Turba didn't have enough information and simply added details into it to make it workable:
But, the Chief Engineer says there was no need for that:
Jules Vasquez
"Someone in the government told me, well, you know, the government paid M&M for the drawing. So then it's for the government. So how can you say that someone the government has contracted is stealing what the government has paid for? Explain to me from a, from a professional engineer's perspective, how you see or how the the issue of proprietary information and intellectual property should be viewed."
Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer
"Yes. The designs that they are providing to the ministry and also in terms to the government of Belize, was paid for by the Government of Belize, agreed. However, those were paid for and presented to us in a format that is from the consultant that we had engaged."
"So everything with respect to that design should have still remained within the title block of of the consultant that we hired. When you remove the drawing from that title block and you insert a new title block that is showing, because it has designed by, drawn by, that is showing that someone else has redesigned the structure."
Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer
"If they had taken exactly what we received from our consultants that the government paid for and used it in its exact format, there was no there would be no problem. Absolutely no problem. Because the bridge was already designed, there was no need to carry out any peer review. I don't think there was any need because we had the project execution unit carried out that peer review during the construction, I mean, during the design and also after the design was completed."
"So in my mind, if the drawing had remained in its exact title block, I don't think there would have been any problem, because yes, it's for the government at least. But it's when you change the title block you're claiming ownership for a new drawing."
Voice of: Julius Espat, Minister - MIDH/Architect
"If they only had left under the title block design by M&M engineering and and and and and placed their logo as the new designers that would have been fine."
So the MIDH engineering unit - which is the paramount authority for bridges in the country says the M&M Design was peer reviewed and approved - but the City Council press release says "Turba determined that the Design Documents sent to them were incomplete. They were not suitable for construction or supervision, missing important components such as calculation notes, geotechnical and environmental reports, and key structural details needed for design verification and otherwise."
Turba then worked in collaboration with structural engineer Carlton Young, making what they say are improvements to the Design Documents along with calculations, reports and other information that they say was missing. Most importantly they point to and list, quote, "key improvements made in the Supplementary Design".
Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer
"But what you're saying is that the one for BELCAN is very similar, but I don't know why that would have been done."
"I don't see any reason as to why you would have needed a new design. Honestly, I don't see any reason as to why you would have needed a new design for that bridge structure."
And Turba concedes it is not a new design but a modified or augmented one - yet their name is on it - and there's no mention of M&M when they used some very specific indigenous design features that M&M has refined, such as these concrete sheet piles - a Belizean innovation:
Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer
"And one, one item that could, explicitly, go to that item is the sheet piles. The concrete sheet piles. Those concrete sheet piles were developed when we had that revetment failure on the Phillip Goldson highway. Remember we were supposed to import steel. Piles and it would have taken, I think, 4 to 6 months for us to get the steel sheet files from China."
"So we asked M&M Engineering to come up with those sheet piles for the revetment on the Phillip Goldson that had collapsed. So when I saw those drawings on the news on Friday, those are the piles that we had approved at MIDH. He came up with the design, we reviewed it and we said, okay, no problem, that could work. Let's go ahead and use that. So we used those sheet piles on the Phillip Goldson revetment collapse that we had several years ago."
"But but those are the same panels that I think you showed on your drawing, on the news, sorry."
So is it intellectual property theft, or fair use of state property? That is a matter that the court may have to decide but the entire shifting of the project from the MIDH to the City Hall - followed by this unattributed use of another engineer's design - does create a cloud:
Jules Vasquez
"This whole thing has been a perverted project in terms of taking it from MIDH who has has that responsibility for a reason. And now we are seeing another, unusual occurrence. This entire thing stinks. It noh look good. It's not a good look. First, you take it from MIDH who has responsibility for bridges and then you have this, serious allegation of intellectual property theft."
Voice of: Julius Espat, Minister - MIDH/Architect
"I don't agree with two words, I could agree with the rest, I noh agree with perverted and stinks, but I agree with the rest."
Turba's attorney, Adler Waight says his client has provided design and supervision services on other construction projects in Belize and many other countries, including Turks & Caicos, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Lebanon.
We note that in its very wordy 3 page release the City Council did not say if it had put out to bid the supervision services which it retained Turba to perform for 882 thousand US dollars.
