Shortly before the start of the news, Daniel Arguelles, the owner of International Environments Limited, granted us a zoom interview to respond to the PUP's suggestion that there are things seriously wrong with the contract for the new Foreign Affairs building.
Arguelles told us that the PUP is being unfair to make a blanket statement that it is over-priced, without looking at the product in its entirety:
Daniel Arguelles, Owner, International Environments
"That figure doesn't encompass only a building, it encompasses hard and soft cost. We are a design built company and we are engaged to execute a turnkey project. That includes architecture and engineering fees. Separate from that, the building alone has its costs separate from landscaping and civil works outside the building. You don't just lump up everything into one and put out there that it is above and beyond the cost that is standard in these. Let me say something towards the cost that is standard to Belize. As you know and as the public can agree, we take pride in the projects that we execute and we ourselves stretch the limit and stretch the bar for Belizeans. We employ 100% Belizean staff, engineers, labor force to execute these works. By its nature of trying to do a better job and increasing the bar in the landscape of architecture for Belize, we are at a slightly different price point when it comes to projects. It's not the run of the mill brick and mortar type of projects. Foreign Affairs as you will see, is unlike any other building that's ever been done in Belize before. We had to meet first world standards as with all of our projects. We have a price point that we must meet to afford all the necessities that is required for projects like these. As an example, when we put in high-tech low energy, or low heat glass as we say in the industry to save on the heat gain of the building so that we can then make it an eco-environmental friendly and sustainable building to reduce low energy costs. All of this comes at a price point that is above and beyond what is the standard in Belize. Complexities of projects matter and you can't just assign a blanket statement as though everything falls under one bracket."
Reporter
"Do you have any comment on the point they're saying that there's a bypass of financial oversight, when they're saying that the branch funds went directly from the government of Taiwan to your firm's accounts instead of going firstly to the consolidated revenue fund?"
Daniel Arguelles, Owner, International Environments
"I can't speak to what processes should have taken place or whether or not it's the right way because we provided a contract and agreed to the contract terms. Under the contract terms we required down payments as any other contracts above board and payments were received, and that is how all of these projects work. I can't regulate how I receive funds, I received them in my bank account and that is the normal process of design build projects or any contracts for that matter."
We also asked him about the rebuke which PUP's Julius Espat leveled at his company for the works that they performed to rejuvenate the Commercial Center, which the Belize City Council now uses as its headquarters. Espat suggested that they didn't do a good job, and here's how Daniel Arguelles responded:
Julius Espat - Western Deputy Leader, PUP
"The commercial center as we call it city hall Belize City occupied by the city council which is by the way a siv, if anybody would like to know that the city hall is right now, go out to that building precisely right now and you will see the mops and the buckets that are there right now to be able to pick up the water that is falling through the walls and ceiling."
Daniel Arguelles
"It's unfortunate a situation for them to just politicize this scenario. Again, we take pride in our work, we turn around projects that are unbelievably difficult everyone has this challenge. We decided to do our renovation, and again in our profession the same as the gentleman questioned, a renovation is very difficult but thats not to say that we didn't do a good job. We turned around that building from disgrace to something that people in the downtown area can be proud of and we did many other projects down town inclusive of the house of culture. I might add that that was a building constructed in times of the PUP and if I must say, I had little to work with for a building that was degenerated beyond repair, but we said "lets save the building, let's work with it because it makes sense to save the building and make an impact down town". We embarked on trying to salvage what we can from the building and transformed it into something usable for the city council and anyone who goes in there. The unfortunate situation is that we did not construct or renovated the roof because it was already done before we even started the project. That was a kind of patched job at the time and we did not have the budget to do an entirely new roof."
We also asked Daniel Arguelles to comment on the clear picture that the PUP is painting, that his company, International Environments Limited, was a UDP favourite and that's why they got all those 103 million dollars in public works contracts. Here's how he responded:
Daniel Arguelles
"It's disingenuous for someone to just kick projects out and give blanket statements. It doesn't do our architectural industry any favors to attest to when we are trying to do things the right way. We receive all the projects that we acquired, we bid on them, some we were the only ones that decided we wanted to take the project and there was no other bidder involved in fact no one showed up. From the smallest of projects, for example the falcon field project, we wanted to get into parks and recreation and so we decided to bid on the project because it is small. We like to see new things happening in Belize and we were the only ones that sent in a bid. To my peers, it was too small of a project for them to bid on, for lack of better words, it was a waste of time for them. It's not a waste of time for me, I needed a project, we can employ people and we can do nice things for Belize, so why not take it? There were several other projects I got but to the point of the $100,000,000 figure you can't just say things like that because it puts people in trouble and creates a false blanket statement that makes people look bad and that's just not right. Some of these projects, and two of the main ones are joint venture projects. Thats not all I.E. We started this company in 2001, we came back to Belize and decided we were going to fulfill our dreams and just make an impact in society architecturally. We embarked on different paths of the business where it lead into construction as well. We developed what is now known, we pioneered the first ever design build company. We design and we construct, no one else could have done that. In these and recent times, it is becoming the new go to type of profession, business or firm."
