No commercial construction project has caused as much controversy as the Warsaw Hyatt in a very long time. The general contractor, Cogei, has accused its Polish sub contractors of bad quality in their work. In turn, they have organised picketing in front of the hotel against what they call ĎItalian con mení and other forms of protest.
The official opening of the hotel, which belongs to Cosmar Polska, is planned for September. This is a delay of one year from when it was originally planned.
Rigoberto Caramanica, MD of Cosmar Polska, says that the building partially came in service at the beginning of March. For him, he claims, this represents a major loss, for example a PLN2.4m fine for not bringing on line the office part of the hotel. To this, he says, must be added lack of earning potential and interest paid to the banks. Cosmar was forced to place USD11m more than planned into the project and he says that the subcontractors must carry the can.
The front line is drawn between general contractor Cogei Polska and its Polish subcontractors. The conflict started to get very nasty last March.
Jerzy Nadolski, MD of Almides, says that Cosmar wanted to build a luxury hotel at the cheapest price possible and at the same time keep something for itself. The Italians did not use their own capital, they just borrowed it. He says that they brought in amateurs from Italy and the losses they caused were heaped onto the Polish subcontractors. That is why, he claims, he was not paid and now various tricks are being used to avoid payment.
The Italians are claiming that the Poles did not understand what they were signing. Rigoberto Caramanica says that the contract signed met the international standards of FIDIC.
Edward Szwarc of Warsaw based Instalexport says that FIDIC documentation is an irrelevance in the conflict, the dispute only concerns the negative financial engineering of Cosmar.
Non payment is accompanied by complaints about the quality of the work.
Rigoberto Caramanica says that Cogei chooses suppliers not only on price but also on references. He says that the company has more than 150 suppliers but has a conflict with only five of them.
Those five are Almides, ABB Instal, Instalexport, Instal Poznań and Tanake. He says that the quality of the work they performed was so bad that Cogei had to replace them with other subcontractors.
Edward Szwarc says that it is absurd that a company like Instalexport which has almost twenty years experience in Germany and has built hotels such as Ibis in Poznan could suddenly lose its ability. Jerzy Nadolski of Almides says that although there were no serious complaints, no money was received. Instal Poznań also says that the desire not to pay them was due to a cost saving drive by the general contractor.