A retired Winnipeg police inspector who served as the second police liaison to the city’s police headquarters project told the public inquiry into the construction of the megaproject that he was left in the dark about cost overruns.

Randy Benoit spent 2½ years as a Winnipeg Police Service liaison to the construction component of the city’s $214-million police headquarters purchase and renovation project, which ended up $79 million over budget by the time it was completed in 2016.

The project was also subject to two audits, an RCMP investigation and two civil lawsuits, including one where a judge ruled former Winnipeg CAO Phil Sheegl accepted a $327,200 bribe from the owner of police headquarters contractor Caspian Construction. The second lawsuit was setlled by Caspian and dozens of other defendants for a maximum of $28 million.

In 2011, Benoit replaced civilian Abdul Aziz, a mechanical engineer by training, as the eyes and ears of the Winnipeg Police Service on the construction project, which by the fall of 2011 was already careening toward $59 million in cost overruns and was plagued by infighting among contractors.

Aziz testified Monday that he raised concerns about Caspian, both before and after the contractor was awarded an initial construction management contract on the work. In an exhibit presented to the inquiry, Aziz accused Caspian principal Armik Babakhanians of lying about the work conducted by initial project design firm AECOM.

Benoit told the inquiry Tuesday he took over from Aziz in September 2011 and soon noticed problems with communication.

“The city has set up the worst possible deal with what they have done,” Benoit wrote in an October 2011 document presented to the inquiry as an exhibit.

Caspian was initially awarded a $50,000 construction management contract in a joint venture with Akman Construction in February 2011.

In November of that year, Caspian alone was awarded a $137-million “guaranteed maximum price” construction contract that was based on designs that were only 30 per cent complete at the time, the inquiry was told, echoing the findings of a police headquarters construction audit completed 12 years ago by consulting firm KPMG.

Benoit testified Babakhanians started saying Caspian needed more money to address further cost overruns in 2013 but provided no numbers to demonstrate the need for additional funds.

Benoit testified project director Ossama AbouZeid, who was hired to protect the city’s interest in the construction project, pushed for Babakhanians to divulge numbers.

Benoit said the need for even more money — city council eventually approved $17 million more for the project — led senior city staff to consider a stop work order in 2013.

“Armik made it clear to me that morning that even if we tell him to stop — which had been done on the phone the previous day — he’s not stopping,” Benoit testified.

“He’s got to get this built and it’s going his way and there’s no stopping.”

Benoit later complained Caspian boxed the city in and, in a document presented as an exhibit, suggested Babakhanians was leaving project director AbouZeid in the dark as well.

“The director was always pushing for these numbers, and somehow Caspian was allowed to go on,” Benoit said.

Under cross-examination from lawyers for Babakhanians and former Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz, Benoit said his training as a police inspector was incongruous with his work as a construction project liaison and said he had never worked on a project on the scale of the police headquarters.

AbouZeid is slated to testify Tuesday afternoon.