Amid concerns over a delay in completing the Millennium Highway project, the Saint Lucia government is considering its options, including whether it can continue with the existing contractor.
The disclosure came Monday from Infrastructure Minister Stephenson King.
“Can we continue with the contractor? Does the grant loan agreement allow us to disengage?” King told reporters.
“If we were to proceed with disengagement, meaning to terminate the contract, what are the implications considering that the project is not funded by the government of Saint Lucia?” The former Prime Minister said.
He explained that it was a United Kingdom grant with terms and conditions.
And King described the current situation regarding the road project as sad.
But he disclosed that the Attorney General was looking at the agreement to facilitate an informed decision that would not jeopardise Saint Lucia’s relationship with the UK or lose the remaining funding.
King told reporters that the original delivery date on the Millennium Highway should have been March 2023.
But the current timeline is March 2024.
The deplorable state of the Millennium Highway has been a source of outrage for the government and motorists.
The contract award went to C.O. Williams Construction.
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When its sunny and bright guys just going up and down, and want to talk rain. This is just unacceptable. For a moment i thought the government would not intervene and make a statement on the lingering taking place on this project. Hope they pick up a pace from now on moving forward
How can you award a contract without including an indemnity clause for unwarranted delays? The behavior of the government and contractors in St. Lucia is counter-intuitive, mindboggling, and suspicious. Sadly enough, when a country is devoid of fairness and justice anarchy and mayhem is the order of the day.
A whole article to say nothing! A whole two years to come and ask these dumb questions. Perhaps the AG should have already presented his research and recommendations so an informed decision can be made. But then again why do you expect from a Minister who said the roads could not be repaired because we were in the rainy season!
Fire the consultants and the problem will be solved.
Is always the contractor to blame! This king of a failure will never blame himself and his entire staff of brilliant engineers, project managers, accountants, procurement experts, quantity surveyors, site technicians and office personnel. Same thing with st judges, always blaming a contractor when there are people with authority above the contractor like the project managers. Amazing!
Mr. Stephenson King you are a failure. Only now after 2 years you come out and talk after people started bitterly complaining. It just goes to show youll have no care for putting people first. You stopped all Freshstart projects but all of a sudden you cant stop that one ? You guys are shameless and vindictive to say the least. For Mr. Phillip J Pierre to pull King and Frederick in his camp speaks even more ridiculous and dishonest he as a PM is.
Everything is politics…who awarded the contract?
@”The Truth” you just couldn’t resist dragging Richard into this eh.
What makes me laugh is everyone is always running down the UK etc but they are paying for our roads. Hypocritical talk always.
@Concerned [troll]: The motivation for UK grants is in the fine print; in the terms & conditions section which you never bother to read!
After you keep giving excuses to the delay of that project; what about the Rodney bay highway that you’ll stop because of standards not met. We never heard the results from the assessment you’ll said was completed. The project was almost complete but because of the contractor you’ll stop it and still pay them the money and the road not completed. To top it all off you’ll place two speed bumps which are less than a mile away from 2 other speed bumps by the marina that were erected after a death of tourist.
It is with much disappointment and laughter I read and analyse the contents of this article to find any relevant information of substance from the senior minister within the government. Also an ex Prime minister!
My questions are simple, who chooses the contractor was it government or the UK?
Why is the Minister of infrastructure not fully informed or farmilarise with the contactural obligations and idemities and clauses on this project?
And why have it taken him in excess of two years to request legal advice from AG?
My summary of the situation is simply incompetence of the Minister and to some extent within his department because civil servants are no longer neutral professionals who are allowed to articulate their professional views withour negative consequences.
We definitely heading down the road of failing state. If we the people do not wake up.
Beggars want to be choosers the highway is been repaired at no cost to the country but we complaining the most. Well tell the government to go beg funding from Taiwan to finish it and pay the taxes. It’s an UK GRANT FOOLS NOT A UK LOAN and that’s fine by me as long as my taxes not paying for it I will keep on climing the Mone twice per week.
if was Rayneau that was in charge the roads maybe would have been completed or near to completion already. and people will wonder why is rayneau that gets most of the work. I say get rid of C.O. Willliams and never employ them again or dont give them no big contracts to work on. Its like from the time MR. Williams passed away who ever that is running the business right now just lapsing. a few holes the fellas refuse to block in the cul de sac junction so that the traffic can be of some ease.
If this CO Williams struggled to complete one lane of road from Halcyon to Choc, how can we then expect them to fix the Milliennium Highway which is much more complicated?
@The Most Honorable Lucian Highgrade: The cost to the country is the loss of all scruples, dignity & honor by its representatives (SLP & UWP) when positioning themselves as permanent beggars (mendicants), dependent on any scraps thrown to the floor for them. Africans (those who do not sell out their people) are laughing at these house negroes we have in the Caribbean, who keep taking it up the a$$, while grinning widely at their buggers.
Here is a discussion from 11 months ago, describing how Africans are resisting the commands to bend over for the US empire:
Africa Stands Up to US Cold War Bullying Against China & Russia, with Kambale Musavuli
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtSWEwwkX0s
The project manager needs to implement some remedies to the slow pace of work. The project is already behind schedule and maybe over budget so do your job and look for the best solution to get it done. There is too much politics being played with everything in this country.