When a government contractor fails to deliver, the standard playbook involves explaining the delays, submitting a revised schedule, and getting back to work. Kallco Guyana Incorporated, the Guyanese arm of Trinidad and Tobago-based Kall Co Ltd and its chairman Arvin Kalloo, chose a different path.
After Guyana’s Minister of Public Works, Bishop Juan Edghill, declared the company a “non-performing contractor” and moved to remove it from two active government contracts, Kallco’s attorneys sent a letter to the Trinidad Express threatening legal action for libel if the story was published. The story was published.
The blacklisting proceedings went forward. Both contracts, a billion-Guyanese dollar road project on the East Coast Demerara Highway and a 513.7 million Guyanese dollar office construction at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, were eventually taken away entirely.
How 65 Percent of Contract Time Produced Only 25 Percent of the Work
The trouble began in August 2023, when Guyana’s Ministry of Public Works signalled its intention to issue formal letters of poor and non-performance to Kallco Guyana Inc. The company had been awarded Lot 8B of the Conversation Tree Road Project, valued at 830 million Guyanese dollars, to construct the western section of a major East Coast Demerara Highway corridor connecting the Conversation Tree junction to Dennis Street. The original completion deadline was November 5, 2023. By the time the ministry intervened, 65 percent of the contract period had elapsed with only approximately 25 percent of the physical work completed.
Kallco personnel were summoned to Edghill’s office and ordered to submit a proposal detailing how they intended to finish the project on time. The proposal was submitted. The ministry reviewed it and was not persuaded. “It is clear from what has been presented to us both in writing and in printed form that Kallco won’t be able to complete the project in the stipulated time,” Edghill told the Trinidad Express. “And therefore we have deemed them a non-performing contractor.” Site visits by journalists confirmed what the ministry had found: while S. Jagmohan Construction and General Supplies Inc, the Guyanese firm handling Lot 8A of the same project, worked visibly and at pace, Kallco’s section showed little movement. Residents along the corridor complained of stagnant water breeding mosquitoes and blocked access to their homes and properties.
Two Contracts on the Line and a Minister Who Said Kallco Should Get No More Work
The road project was not Kallco’s only active Guyanese government contract. The company also held a separate 513.7 million Guyanese dollar agreement, signed in August 2021, to construct office buildings and airline facilities at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Timehri. Edghill told the Express that Kallco would have to be removed from both. “They have to receive written instructions but these are short-term actions,” the minister said, making clear that removal was a matter of process, not debate. Beyond the two existing contracts, Edghill went further. “They should not be getting any other work,” he stated, and confirmed that the Ministry of Public Works would approach the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board to formally discuss blacklisting Kallco Guyana Inc from bidding on any further government contracts in the country.
The Legal Threat That Arrived Two Hours After a Reporter’s WhatsApp Message
When the Trinidad Express reached out to Arvin Kalloo for comment, his cellphone went unanswered. Within minutes, Kallco’s attorneys, Devesh Maharaj and Associates, called the paper’s reporter directly. A formal WhatsApp message was subsequently sent to Kalloo at 3.22 p.m. By 5.35 p.m., a written response arrived from Kalloo’s legal team, titled “Proposed action for libel.”
The letter did not dispute the project’s delays. It did not provide an alternative account of the works completed or the timeline. Instead, it informed the Express that Minister Edghill’s statements were “highly defamatory” and that Kallco denied them. It warned that if those statements were published, “our client will immediately commence legal proceedings against you without delay for the obvious damage that these defamatory statements are likely to cause.” The attorneys added that they had deliberately avoided quoting the minister’s words in the letter itself “so as not to perpetuate the libel.” The Trinidad Express published the story regardless. This was, as the paper noted, the third article it had written on the Guyana situation.
Weather, Separate Entities, and the Word “Shoddy”
Kallco’s public responses to the growing controversy were notable for what they avoided. A spokesperson for Kallco Guyana, who identified himself as Nizam Persaud, told the Express in an earlier exchange that the primary challenge facing the company had been the weather. He also called the paper to object to the word “shoddy” in the headline of a prior story, insisting the problem was not the quality of the work but the timeliness of its delivery. That distinction, while legally meaningful, did little to address what residents and the ministry had documented on the ground.
Persaud further argued that Kallco Guyana Inc and Kall Co Ltd in Trinidad were completely separate entities with different boards and management structures. That argument was a legal one, and it may have had merit in a courtroom. It did not change the fact that both entities shared a name, a founder, and a pattern. In Trinidad, WASA had commissioned an external audit of Kallco’s road restoration invoices, found discrepancies in measurements and asphalt thickness claims, and refused to pay more than TT$35 million of a TT$77.7 million claim. Kallco settled on the eve of trial for TT$34 million. The authority has not awarded Kallco a new contract since 2020.
What Blacklisting Would Mean and What Ultimately Happened
The NPTAB blacklisting process, if completed, would have barred Kallco Guyana Inc from bidding on any publicly tendered government contract in Guyana. Whether or not the formal blacklisting was finalised, the practical outcome matched it. Both contracts were removed. In June 2024, the government formally demobilised Kallco from the Conversation Tree site and appointed S. Jagmohan and Sons to complete the remaining works. The ministry took physical possession of Kallco’s vehicles and equipment to recover the advance payment that had been issued at the start of the contract. The CJIA airport contract was also terminated, with the ministry re-advertising the work as a fresh 1.5 billion Guyanese dollar tender in December 2024.
Conclusion
Kallco’s attorneys called Edghill’s words defamatory and threatened a lawsuit within two hours of a reporter’s inquiry. No lawsuit followed. What followed instead was demobilisation, equipment seizure, contract termination, and a re-tender of the airport project from scratch. Arvin Kalloo described the eventual Conversation Tree separation as amicable. The minister who oversaw it called the company non-performing and said it should not receive any further work in Guyana. The record supports one of those descriptions more than the other.
