Canal contractor continues to ask for more

WITH THE THREAT of further delays in the finishing  of the third set of locks for the Panama Canal  expansion project The consortium GUPC has  submitted yet another  claim for more money  to the Board of Conflict Resolution.

The latest  claim relates to the draining and removal of sludge that was in a trench that was part of the excavations done by the United States in 1939 when talk of widening the canal was first under way..

The consortium received $5 million for this work, but is demanding an additional payment of $5.4 million.

The resolution board has previously described some of GUPC’s claims as “inflated”

The contractor has made 11 claims totaling $813.5 million, of which the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has already paid $288.3 million.

The consortium has submitted another claim for the draining of two lagoons, work for which the ACP paid the contractor $237,000, while GUPC had requested $478,000. GUPC has asked the board to grant it the full amount.

So far, the ACP has disbursed $4.235 billion to GUPC, more than a billion more than the original contracted amount of $3.1 billion. That amount includes an $860 million advance payment due to a lack of liquidity that the consortium must return to the ACP in 2018.

GUPC has threatened to stall the completion of the project if the ACP does not accelerate payments, but the ACP has refused to do so. The project is expected to be finished in the first half of this year if there are no delays, reports La Prensa.