Amid relentless criticism from the opposition United Workers Party (UWP) of the Halls of Justice project’s location, cost, safety and security, and other issues, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) has defended the initiative.
The UWP has also expressed concern regarding the project agreement terms.
However, an OPM release described the terms of the agreement as ‘highly favourable‘.
The complete release appears below:
The Halls of Justice will be constructed under the Philip J. Pierre-led Administration! The judiciary endured years of dislocation, operating in inadequate and inconvenient spaces throughout the city.
After extensive multi-stakeholder consultation and more than a decade in the making, the Government of Saint Lucia successfully reached a historic agreement with Themis LTD, a subsidiary of NH International, to construct the Halls of Justice.
The Government of Saint Lucia and Themis LTD signed a Build Own Lease Transfer (BOLT) agreement for the Halls of Justice on April 19, 2024. NH International is the contractor under the BOLT agreement.
NH International is an experienced construction firm based in Trinidad & Tobago with a proven track record in Saint Lucia.
Most notably, NH International built the main branch of the Bank of Saint Lucia on Bridge Street, Castries and the Financial Administrative Centre at Pointe Seraphine, Castries.
Here are the facts of the BOLT agreement between the Government of Saint Lucia and Themis LTD:
· The total project cost is set at a fixed price of EC $143 million
· Themis LTD will finance 100% of the project costs
· The project cost includes office furniture, filling systems and ICT systems
· The Government of Saint Lucia is not required to guarantee loan financing for the project
· Upon completion of the structures, the Government of Saint Lucia will enter a lease for the facilities for a period not exceeding 12 years
· At the end of the lease period, ownership of the Halls of Justice will be transferred to the Government of Saint Lucia at a price of EC $1
· The Government of Saint Lucia will own a new asset and substantially reduce its annual rental payments
The terms of the BOLT agreement with Themis LTD are highly favourable for the government as it will not assume any financial risks and will not incur any new debt related to the project.
The Halls of Justice will accommodate three judicial divisions: The criminal division, the civil division and the family division.
The facility will consist of 14 courtrooms, six Magistrate chambers, nine Judge’s chambers, 11 witness rooms, 10 administrative offices, a law library, one 26-seater conference room, one police post, holding cells and a high-security defendants dock in the criminal court.
The first phase of the construction works will start in earnest. The anticipated completion date of the Halls of Justice project is two years from the start of construction.
The new Halls of Justice will centralize the civil, criminal and family courts in one convenient and secure location in the capital.
SOURCE: Office of the Prime Minister
Though they are known to be untrustworthy, but to give jack his jacket and what belongs to him :
A proven track of the Hewanorra intense airport,well built no failures !!
Great work!!! The opposition just needs to go away
This looks good in print, but the details are missing. For example,what is the monthly, quarterly or yearly payment and at what percent is the 12 year lease? Also in the interest of transparency was there a bidding process and what was the basis for the selection?
Learn from this, the people of the nation need more transparency, investors also need to know what’s happening to make business decision which benefit the country. There is no reason to withhold information unless it is a matter of national security.
For once I agree with Lowgrade Lucia, the people need more transparency.
Well done. Now do the same for GPH.
Lucian Lowgrade must be in the construction business and the business was taken away from him. He who feels it knows it. IT was about time to wear glasses and be very objective on public business
James Banks May 17, 2024 At 12:48 pm
This looks good in print, but the details are missing. For example,what is the monthly, quarterly or yearly payment and at what percent is the 12 year lease?
First question that comes to mind. Imagine if the monthly payment on this was $2M.
It’s amazing that THE most important component of a lease agreement was not stated in this “fact” press release….ie how much is the monthly payment to the landlord?
Considering that the investor is spending so much ot their own money to build the Halls of Justice and then leasing it to the government for no longer than 12 years, and if the investor has to make a profit as Pierre himself likes to say, then it stands to reason that $143, 000,000/12 = $11.9. million per month the government has to pay for the rental of this facility for 12 years….now it’s glaring that the rental figure was not given and that is clear evidence that the monthly bill will be huge…if Pierre thinks that this will go away or be brushed under the carpet then he is only fooling himself…we will soon hear the monthly rental fee….and I won’t be surprised it will cost the tax payer an arm and a leg plus the left half of the twance fess…
Lodge men paying off their colleagues with state money.
@ C wiz….make your math make sense please!
These politicians are really over doing it now. Uwp(guy and his friends) was trying to build a hospital st judes with no total agreed budget…no spending forecast..no end date, just spending money like crazy! Now in 2024 SLP wants to build a hall’s of justice with no expenditure discoloure…how much will you all pay the investor monthly or yearly over the 12 year period? You can fool some people sometimes but you can’t fool all the people all the time RNM!!!
@C-Wiz where did you learn math? Lol
To properly estimate the monthly rental, you must divide the total cost by the total number of months in the lease period (up to 144 months if the full 12 years is used). This would result in a much lower monthly figure than $11.9 million.
However, without knowing the exact lease term and any interest costs, it’s not possible to calculate the monthly amount precisely. Your approach of dividing the total by just 12 months or years is mathematically incorrect based on the details provided about the lease duration in the story.
Not only that, but I am laughing even louder because you imply there may be something suspicious about the rental figure not being released. There could be various valid reasons it wasn’t included in this particular overview. Additionally, this type of arrangement is very common.
NIPRO has developed several properties in St Lucia under this type of arrangement, including the buildings commonly referred to as the “Government buildings’. Most of them are being rented still and have not been paid off. The infrastructure building at Union was recently paid off.
Do not cry demean just because you lack knowledge. Reserve judgment until you have information!!!
@C-WIZ you have to divide 11.9 mil by 12 then you get the monthly rent which stands at roughly 1 million a month. This is just on the principal amount. What the release did not state was the interest payment on this loan which obviously the slu gov’t has to pay as well.
Favorable terms to the government. What’s the interest rate?
Indeed…to the ever observant eyes of the reading public it would appear that the rental bill will be $11.9 million per year which is roughly $1 million per month and not $11.9 million per month as previously stated in my post….A simple and costly typographical error indeed…..Yet, the reasoning still stands that the investor will have to recoup his investment over the period of a 12 year rental to the government and people of Saint Lucia or atleast recoup his investment before the building is officially handed over to the government and people of Saint Lucia as the true owners. Pierre himself has been on record saying that investors must make a profit from their investments. In fact any investor would want to make a profit and I can’t imagine such a deal did not favour the investor over the Government and people of Saint Lucia. Perhaps, Pierre has pulled a rabbit from a hat on this one, yet In any case we will be there to see and hear for overselves how all this unfolds.
@c wiz…..I was just forming de fool with you on the arithmetic error!
But it’s sad that both uwp and slp think that our population is dominated with gullible monkeys that know nothing about financing investments or simple accounting. Don’t they know we have had 2 Nobel laureates? This deal sounds all nice based on the “selective ” facts shared by the OPM, but the details may conclude otherwise.
No need for the PM to release anything of transparency to satisfy these clowns. You know dam well this project is needed I don’t know how long the government should be wasting taxes payers money paying rent all over the place for courthouse as usual the levels of BAD MIND never sized to amaze me or anyone else, THEY ARE DESPERATE FOR A HAHA MOMENT, Fools !! That jackass Nooks/Nudge/whatever oh we have “two Nobel Lucturate” AND ???. Who cares ?? Those fools were all about themselves that was their own personal enrichment, they applied their set skills abroad, they contributed nothing to St Lucia’s development as it pertains their philosophy ideology and cultural forbearance, we are still a nation fill with children from The Hemalayas.