By Travis Chase | HGP Nightly News|
GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — The Government of Guyana has mounted a fierce defense of its public infrastructure rollout, strongly rubbishing allegations made by Austrian contractor VAMED Engineering GmbH regarding the stalled construction of the Guyana Pediatric and Maternal Hospital and the New Amsterdam Hospital Campus.
In an extensive official response issued late Thursday evening, the state characterized VAMED’s narrative as a misleading account that intentionally strips away critical operational facts. The administration insists that the Ministry of Health was entirely justified in issuing its Notices of Intention to Terminate the two megaprojects on June 2, 2026, pointing out that the decision was driven by the contractor’s repeated performance failures, chronic project delays, and inadequate mobilization of resources rather than pure cash-flow interruptions.
“From the outset, the Government has remained fully committed to the successful completion of both hospitals, which are of strategic value to the people of Guyana,” the Ministry of Health’s central executive panel stated. “At every single stage, the state acted in absolute good faith, honoring its baseline financial frameworks while consistently engaging VAMED to address deep delays and non-compliance based on warnings filed by supervising project engineers. The Ministry only exercised its statutory rights to issue notices after giving the contractor numerous opportunities to correct these blatant field deficiencies.”
The State’s Project Performance Grievance Matrix
Senior government officials have flatly rejected VAMED’s claim that the multi-million-euro impasse is isolated from field execution metrics, detailing a series of structural failures on the ground:
| Project Site / Facility Location | Current Construction Status | Core Technical & Performance Breaches Alleged by State |
| Guyana Pediatric & Maternal Hospital (Ogle, ECD — €149M) | Approximately 50% to 67% completed at the structural level. | One year overdue. Total failure by VAMED to ship, clear, or install vital biomedical equipment. All field subcontractors have reportedly been laid off. |
| New Amsterdam Hospital Campus (Region 6 — €150M) | Merely 27% completed overall. | Progress has completely stalled at the basic foundational phase; work has not advanced past the initial driving of structural piles. |
| The Demanded Remediation | Resumption conditional on a definitive roadmap. | The state has explicitly withheld further funding until VAMED provides a realistic, legally binding project completion schedule. |
[ SOVEREIGN DISPUTE EVALUATION TRACK ]
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┌────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────┐
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[ VAMED Corporate Stand ] [ Ministry of Health Defense ]
- "We have completed certified works" - "Payments are linked directly to milestones"
- Last state payment: May 2025 - Retaining funds due to structural work stoppage
- Demanding €45.53M via ICC Paris - Ready to vigorously contest all claims
“We are not getting them to work, and all they are doing is demanding massive payments,” a senior government official disclosed to reporters. “Yes, we have allocated financial resources ready for them, but if you have completely stopped working and let your subcontractors go, why should the taxpayer continue paying you?”
Certified Invoices “Are Not Uncontested Liabilities”
The state’s legal team took direct aim at the assertions made by VAMED’s lead counsel, Nigel Hughes, who had argued that the interim engineering assessments generated by the independent firm VICAB constituted an undisputed admission of state debt.
The Ministry of Health clarified that under standard international Design-and-Build frameworks, intermediate engineering estimates are never considered automatically enforceable, blank-check liabilities. All figures remain strictly subject to final administrative audits, specific contractual valuation rules, the right to financial set-off against the contractor for missed milestones, and the permanent resolution of outstanding construction defects. It is therefore legally inaccurate for VAMED to frame these numbers as unconditioned state defaults.
Furthermore, the administration pushed back against the claim that the collapse of the Export Credit Facility backed by UK Export Finance (UKEF) in November 2025 was a standalone administrative error by the state. The government maintains that international project financing lines are intrinsically bound to field execution. When a contractor falls over a year behind schedule, the underlying risk insurance and bank lines naturally lock up.
Reaffirming its position as the matter heads toward the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the government stated it has built a comprehensive documentary paper trail spanning several months. The state declared it is prepared to vigorously defend its actions before any international tribunal, confident that the final evidentiary record will prove it acted lawfully to safeguard public funds and prevent the country’s premier healthcare assets from being compromised by poor contractor performance.
