[Anonymous]

The Spanish Company ” SACYR” had been awarded the contract for the extension/widening of the Panama Canal. The company has now threatened to stop works if the payment of €1.5 billion is not agreed/forth coming. Of course I do not have all the details & can only go by what I have read in the media.

The question. I put to the forum users is was the contract deliberately under priced so that it could be awarded to SACYR and or the authorities in Panama had been bribed to achieve this object.

I am aware that contract/projects of such nature are extremely difficult to evaluate. However from the records when the Canal was originally built and the advance in technology mean’s that there should not have been such a substantial difference in under/over of costing.

I feel this a classic Spanish way of delivering projects. The forum users are well aware of the breaches of contract, breaches of delivery and the other short changing that developers had practised in Spain, I have seen the name of the company on various bridges,railway stations & other big projects during my travels in Spain.

I am taking odds on similar kind of outcome on the fast train project in Saudi Arabia. In fact I was surprised that the Saudi’s did not offer this project to an American company under duress or arm twisting.

[DBMarcos99]

Various big contracts are awarded in the UK to Spanish constructions companies – aren’t a large part of the London crossrail project being carried out by Spanish firms?
Here’s the latest big win
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-11/ferrovial-wins-contracts-from-largest-u-k-water-firms.html

Ferrovial SA (FER), a Spanish infrastructure company, won maintenance contracts valued at 415 million pounds ($680 million) from two of the largest U.K. water companies.

There are Spanish construction contracts all around the world, from the US to Australia, from the MiddleEast to Scotland. Trying to extrapolate a difficulty on one contract to the whole industry seems a little bizarre. Remember that walking bridge across the Thames that wobbled when it opened? Would anyone then judge British building based on that one episode?

[katy]

@shakeel wrote:

The Spanish Company ” SACYR” had been awarded the contract for the extension/widening of the Panama Canal. The company has now threatened to stop works if the payment of €1.5 billion is not agreed/forth coming. Of course I do not have all the details & can only go by what I have read in the media.

The question. I put to the forum users is was the contract deliberately under priced so that it could be awarded to SACYR and or the authorities in Panama had been bribed to achieve this object.

I would answer yes, they were the lowest bidder and bribery isn’t exactly unknown in Spain is it.

Then there is the corruption…The ex-president of SACYR sold millions of euros of shares in SACYR days before the the story broke 🙄

[DBMarcos99]

@katy wrote:

@shakeel wrote:

The Spanish Company ” SACYR” had been awarded the contract for the extension/widening of the Panama Canal. The company has now threatened to stop works if the payment of €1.5 billion is not agreed/forth coming. Of course I do not have all the details & can only go by what I have read in the media.

The question. I put to the forum users is was the contract deliberately under priced so that it could be awarded to SACYR and or the authorities in Panama had been bribed to achieve this object.

Then there is the corruption…The ex-president of SACYR sold millions of euros of shares in SACYR days before the the story broke 🙄

That’ll be the EX-PRESIDENT who retired back in 2004 as a chief of SACYR then? 😆 (PS he’s been divesting his shares all year to take advantage of the higher Ibex stock market). Still, another chance for the Spain-haters to spread their poison…
There are no doubt issues to be raised on the project, but this one is not one of them.

[katy]

Huh…no inside information then 😆 😆

[DBMarcos99]

The “ex-president” (I said 2004 but it may have even before that point) has been divesting stock all year – as regular readers here will know, the Ibex stock exchange is up substantially on its 2012 levels. Who wouldn’t take advantage of higher stock prices? Note his participation level has only come down from 11,5% to just below 9%. Surely if you believe the conspiracy theory, he’d have tried to sell it all?? 🙄

http://www.lapatilla.com/site/2014/01/06/ex-presidente-de-sacyr-vendio-287-millones-de-acciones-dias-antes-del-conflicto-en-panama/

De acuerdo con El País, José Manuel Loureda realizó distintas ventas de acciones de Sacyr en varias ocasiones durante el pasado año, reduciendo su participación desde el 11,5% que ostentaba en febrero hasta situarla por debajo del 9% al cierre del ejercicio.

[angie]

It is soooooooo immature of you Marcos to label people ‘Spain haters’ (people whose views differ from yours that not everything is rosy) when do you expect to act your age? Do try and draw the distinction between truth and fiction, noticed you post when the shop is shut or when you’re asked to 🙄

[Anonymous]

As the forum users may have noticed that I come across as ” Spain hater” The fact is that I love the country and see this as my right to be critical where I feel it is due.

Recently, I was with a Spanish friend from a well connected Spanish family. In our normal discussion I told her that I had big hopes for Spain after the death of Franco. Spaniards had waited for so long for democracy, it had young,educated, bright, energetic people and all had to be positive upon Spain joining the EU.

Sadly, Spain had not capitalized on this once in life time opportunity and bought the Country to its knees as a result the Spaniards are once again leaving the Country in droves like the earlier generation who left after the civil war.

[Author]

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