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Cleveland -- ShoreBank Enterprise Cleveland (SEC) has been awarded a $700,000 grant from the United States Department of Health and Human Services to expand its efforts to develop and nurture small businesses, especially minority-owned construction firms in the Cleveland community. ShoreBank Enterprise Cleveland, a non-profit affiliate of ShoreBank Corporation, will use the federal grant to fuel ShoreGrowth, a small business loan fund. Through the fund, SEC increases the accessibility of loans, investments and other financial resources that helps foster the success of young and growing companies in Clevelands urban neighborhoods. The new money will augment our ability to provide seed capital and business advisory services that will develop new opportunities for residents in the construction sector that will benefit the entire community, said Chris Warren, President, ShoreBank Enterprise Cleveland. The grant represents our ongoing commitment to helping Cleveland companies and residents to secure a larger share of the construction contracts and projects throughout the region, added Warren. Roni Thompson came to ShoreBank Enterprise Cleveland for help two years ago as she was just beginning R.L.
The surfacing of a number of corruption scandals linked to the construction industry in Spain has revealed the outright criminality that lay at the heart of the countrys recent economic boom. The most high-profile of these scandals centres on the jet-set resort of Marbella on Spains southern coast. To date, no less than 79 companies have been implicated, 50 people arrested and 2.6 billion (US$3.3 billion) worth of assets seized. The Marbella scandal came to light when a police investigation in March 2005 into drug-related money-laundering activity in the city discovered that groups linked to organised crime had funneled more than 600 million into the booming property-development sector in the city. Further investigation revealed that the corruption scandal went to the heart of local government in Marbella.
TWO major road re-sealing contracts are to be terminated forthwith following failure by the contractor to fulfill his obligations. Zzimwe Construction Company is set to lose the contracts for the resurfacing of the Kibuye-Ndeeba stretch of the Masaka Road, and the Nakulabye-Lubigi road, the Ministry of Works has said. The ministry has been consulting the Solicitor-General and public procurement authorities on procedure and the contracts are set to be stopped next month. Early this week, residents in the heavily populated Ndeeba suburb of Kampala picketed against the slow progress of a six-month job that started over a year ago. This was not the first time that residents have protested the terrible nature of the road, whose tarmac was stripped away leaving a rutted mess that alternates between the unhealthily dusty and the maddeningly muddy.
WASHINGTON -- The contractor that botched construction of a $75 million police academy in Baghdad so badly that human waste dripped from the ceilings has produced shoddy work on 13 out of 14 projects reviewed by federal auditors, the top official monitoring Iraq's reconstruction told Congress yesterday. In a House hearing on what has gone wrong with reconstruction contracts in Iraq, Parsons Corp. quickly became the focus, taking bipartisan heat for its record of falling short on critical projects. The Pasadena, Calif., firm was supposed to build facilities at the heart of the $21 billion US-led reconstruction program, including fire stations, border forts, and healthcare centers. But inspectors have found a litany of flaws in the firm's work. The one project reviewed by auditors that was being constructed correctly, a prison, was taken away from Parsons before its completion because of escalating costs.
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 (Bernama) -- Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu has asked the contractor of the Duta-Hulu Kelang Expressway (DUKE) to undertake remedial work at the site of the landslide in Wangsa Maju. "I have directed the contractor to start work as soon as possible. I have also asked the Highway Authority of Malaysia to investigate the landslide and submit a full report on the incident," he told Bernama when contacted in London where he is attending the 13th International Transportation System World Congress. The minister said although the cause of the landslide was not known yet, the main contractor of the expressway had been asked to take all measures to complete the remedial work fast. The landslide, which occurred at about 7.10pm Monday following a downpour, resulted in the evacuation of nearly 700 people living in four blocks of low cost flats.
51% of UK construction professionals felt that corruption is commonplace within the UK construction industry according to a survey by the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB). The survey asked over 1400 construction professionals what type of corrupt practice was most commonly found, and examined attitudes of how corrupt they deemed a variety of practices to be. The study also looked at the areas in which respondents felt that corrupt practice was most likely to occur. 82% of respondent's were managers or directors; 57% worked in large companies, 20% were employed in medium sized firms and 23% in small organisations. 76% of respondent's regarded the employment of illegal workers as widespread in UK construction; 60% felt that fraud within the industry was prevalent and 41% had been personally offered a bribe.
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