When a government hires a contractor to build four lanes of carriageway, two major concrete bridges, and concrete revetments through a densely populated corridor, it expects the road to get built. Residents along the Conversation Tree corridor in Georgetown expected the same.
What they got instead, for more than a year, was a construction site that generated stagnant water, bred mosquitoes, blocked access to their properties, and moved at a pace so slow that by the time Guyana’s Ministry of Public Works intervened, 65 percent of the contract time had elapsed and only 25 percent of the work was done. The contractor responsible was Kallco Guyana Inc, the Guyanese subsidiary of Trinidad and Tobago-based Kall Co Ltd, founded and chaired by Arvin Kalloo out of Piarco, Trinidad.
In June 2024, the government of Guyana formally demobilised Kallco from the site, seized its vehicles and equipment to recover an advance payment, and handed the unfinished work to a local contractor. It was not the first time a government client had found Kallco’s performance impossible to verify or defend.
An 830 Million Guyanese Dollar Contract That Produced Almost Nothing for Residents
Kallco Guyana Inc was awarded Lot 8B of the Conversation Tree Road Project in 2022 by Guyana’s National Procurement and Tender Administration Board. The contract was valued at 830,293,458 Guyanese dollars and covered the western section of what was a 1.8 billion Guyanese dollar infrastructure project connecting the Conversation Tree corridor to Dennis Street, with a four-lane carriageway, a double-lane carriageway, concrete revetments, and two large concrete bridges. The original completion deadline for Lot 8B was November 5, 2023. That date passed without the road being finished. Guyana’s Minister of Public Works, Bishop Juan Edghill, extended the deadline and summoned Kallco’s principals to his office.
Kallco submitted a proposal outlining how it planned to complete the works. The ministry reviewed it and found the plan unconvincing. With 65 percent of contract time consumed and only a quarter of the physical work accomplished, Edghill declared Kallco a “non-performing contractor” and told the Trinidad Express the company should not be permitted to do any more work in Guyana. Site visits by journalists confirmed what the ministry’s assessments had found: while the other lot of the same project, handled by Guyanese firm S. Jagmohan Construction and General Supplies Inc, was progressing visibly, Kallco’s section showed little movement. Residents continued to complain about flooding, mosquito breeding, and blocked access to homes.
The Demobilisation, the Equipment Seizure, and What “Amicable” Actually Meant
When Guyana’s Department of Public Information announced the resolution in June 2024, it used careful language. The government, it said, had reached “an amicable agreement” with Kallco. Arvin Kalloo confirmed the “amicable separation” and attributed the delays to increased prices his company faced. The ministry’s own account told a different story about what the settlement actually involved.
Kallco returned the outstanding balance for work not yet completed. It also paid the cost of other liabilities that arose because the project exceeded its contractual timeframe. And the government took possession of Kallco’s vehicles and equipment to cover the advance payment that had been made to the company at the start of the contract. These are not the terms of a mutual parting between satisfied parties. They are the terms imposed on a contractor that failed to deliver, ran past its deadline, and left a sovereign government scrambling to recover its money in kind. S. Jagmohan and Sons was appointed to complete the remaining works, with Edghill publicly targeting an August 2024 completion and stating that workers would need to operate “day and night.”
The Cheddi Jagan Airport Contract That Also Collapsed
The Conversation Tree project was not the only Guyanese government contract Kallco held when the non-performance proceedings began. In August 2021, Kallco Guyana Inc signed a separate contract valued at 513.7 million Guyanese dollars to construct office buildings, airline facilities, and a duty-free bond at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Timehri. That contract also stalled. Edghill told reporters that Kallco would have to be removed from both projects. By late 2024, the Ministry of Public Works had re-advertised the CJIA contract as a fresh 1.5 billion Guyanese dollar tender, starting from scratch after Kallco’s removal. Two government contracts in the same country, awarded in the same period, both ending with the contractor being removed and the government seeking someone else to finish the job.
Invoice Discrepancies at WASA and a Settlement on the Eve of Trial
The pattern of disputed performance did not begin in Guyana. In Trinidad, Kallco had provided services to the Water and Sewerage Authority, known as WASA, continuously since 2006. When Kallco submitted a claim of TT$77.7 million for road restoration work performed for the authority, WASA refused to pay. An external audit it commissioned found discrepancies in the invoices relating to the conversion of cubic metres to tonnes and inconsistencies in asphalt thickness measurements. WASA could only verify TT$35 million of the total claim. Kallco initiated legal action to recover the full amount. The case proceeded to the eve of trial before Kallco agreed to settle for TT$34 million, less than half of its original claim. Kalloo described the decision as being “in the interest of avoiding prolonged and costly litigation” and declined to disclose the settlement figure. WASA’s chairman described it as a victory for accountability and said the authority had successfully defended the taxpayer against tens of millions in unverifiable claims. Since 2020, WASA has not awarded Kallco any new contracts.
What Guyana’s Residents Were Left With and Who Is Finishing the Work
The human cost of the delay along the Conversation Tree corridor was specific and documented. Residents could not access their properties through a functional road. Stagnant water accumulated in the incomplete drainage works and became a mosquito breeding ground. Guyana’s Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo acknowledged the delays publicly, attributing them to the pace of development in a rapidly growing oil economy. That framing did not address what those living beside an unfinished construction site experienced through months of inaction from the contractor responsible for completing it.
S. Jagmohan and Sons, the Guyanese firm that handled Lot 8A of the same project, completed its section at a satisfactory pace while Kallco’s section stalled. It was the same project, the same client, the same timeline, and the same external conditions that Kalloo cited as the reason for his company’s delays. The difference was performance. Jagmohan was appointed to complete Kallco’s unfinished section as well.
Conclusion
Kallco’s record in Guyana is not an isolated bad run. It is a pattern: two contracts, two non-performance findings, two removals, equipment seized, advance payments clawed back, and the work handed to others to finish. In Trinidad, an external audit could not verify nearly half of a major WASA claim, and Kallco settled before a court could rule on the discrepancy. Arvin Kalloo called the Guyana departure amicable. The government of Guyana called Kallco a non-performing contractor and took its vehicles to recover its money. The road is now being built by someone else.
