Turks and Caicos, June 19th 2017 – Providenciales – MSME’s have time and time again expressed their frustration with being unable to respond rapidly and competitively to invitations to bid on both private and government jobs, particularly, those in the construction industry. However, with the aid of ‘CJET’ this is promised to be a thing of the past. CJET is a Computerized Job Estimation Tool, designed and developed by the Caribbean Development Bank’s CTCS Network to respond to the difficulties which small business owners face. It is also said to add to the small business owners, entrepreneurs and contractors’ skillset as well as enable them to now efficiently define task details, finite costings and competitive price quotes.
Recently, The Caribbean Technical and Consultancy Services, a part of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), together with The Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing and Planning hosted a week of training for small business owners where this tool was introduced.
From May 22nd-26th in North Caicos, Middle Caicos and Providenciales and May 29th – June 2nd, in Grand Turk, South Caicos and Salt Cay, small and medium contractors, artisans, craftsmen, business owners and entrepreneurs were all introduced to CJET.
Minister of Infrastructure, Housing & Planning, Goldray Ewing said, “Through my consultation with many contractors in the field, I have become aware of their challenges and I am pleased to know that this extremely informative and educational Computerized Job Estimation Tool (CJET), will serve to address many of these issues in their relevant bid submissions.” Adding that the training was just a first step in affording them many more prospective opportunities in their respective areas of expertise.
It is not an app, but rather a tool designed and built across an Excel platform. It does not require any prior and/or profound operational knowledge of Excel. It can be taught within a one-hour introduction to basic Excel. All mathematical computations to arrive at costing and pricing of each task and each overall job, is built into the computerized CJET schedules. All projects are broken down into logically sequential Jobs, following the task schedules the job will naturally follow. All jobs are then further broken down into finite tasks, just as how the Artisan and/or Contractor will execute them. CJET computes and summarizes all tasks within each job. Finally, CJET summarizes the overall costing and pricing of the project.
CJET allows the Artisan or Contractor, to adjust the cost and price of each task, within each job, throughout the entire project (or any component of the project) by simply giving the command to reduce or increase the cost/price of each component. Consequently, the Artisan has total control in manipulating any task and/or job cost and, where necessary, the entire project cost, by giving the appropriate command, wherever, and however he sees appropriate.
Deputy Governor, Anya Williams also revealed, “the TCI is also in the process of incorporating some of the elements of this program into our tertiary education system through the Turks and Caicos Islands Community College.”
For those who missed out on the training, the Deputy Governor also revealed that TCIG would also be providing Procurement and Tendering training to assist in widening the government’s potential contractor market. Thus all MSME’s have a lot to look forward to in the near future once the government keeps their promises.
Story By: Kay-Marie Fletcher
#MagneticMediaNews
