Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer is not going to be able to keep his commitment to Antigua & Barbuda to have the National Public Library completed in 2011.
Executive Secretary of the Board of Education (BOE) D Gisele Isaac confirmed yesterday that a 2011 completion date is out of the question.
“Oh absolutely not. it can’t be completed this year. The first thing we need to get is overseas materials, so even if I were to place the order today there is no way they are going to get here for us to complete anything before year-end. So, no it’s not going to happen in 2011,” Isaac said yesterday.
In January this year Spencer categorically stated, “The public library must be completed and operationalised by 2011, whatever the situation.”
Spencer at the time said his administration was taking full responsibility for the inordinate delay in the completion of the facility, “but it must be done.”
However, 11 months later construction work is yet to resume as contractors are still waiting on further funding needed to complete the project.
The general contractor on the project, the Antigua & Barbuda Contractors Enterprises Limited (ABCEL) has long held that once the necessary funding is in place the building can be completed in a matter of months.
Isaac said in June this year the Board of Education applied for a further .7 million loan from the Antigua Commercial Bank (ACB) to have the library completed.
“Basically we were approved for the loan and there are certain things that government has to get in place in terms of Cabinet decisions and government guarantees for the borrowing that I am waiting on Cabinet to get to me through the Ministry of Finance,” Isaac said.
“We have not drawn down a penny. We have not ordered any materials or anything for the library as yet because we are waiting on these guarantees for the loan,” Isaac added.
The BOE executive secretary said putting a deadline on the completion of the library is out of the question until government provides the guarantees for the loan and the bank releases the money.
“The minute we have the money, we will place the order for the overseas materials. When those orders are placed, we will hopefully be able to give a definite answer for the completion date of the library,” Isaac said.
“The fact that we are ordering these things from overseas and some of these things need to be manufactured … so once we have a date from the manufacturer as to when these things will be shipped then we can estimate our completion date,” Isaac added.
Despite being unable to provide a completion date, Isaac is confident that the final step has been reached in the process to construct a national library and that the funds, once released, will be sufficient to see through completion.
“That is what we have been assured by the project manager and by the contractors. That is the figure (.7 million) they gave us for materials and labour. I don’t know if the long delay is going to throw us off a little bit because you know prices do change, but that is the figure that we were told would complete the library, ” Isaac said.
In September 2008, ABCEL took over a partially completed complex, which had been left languishing for several years. However the group of local contractors faced repeated delays due to major remedial work that the building needed combined with constant difficulties in accessing the funds to complete the project.
In September 2008 the BOE and ABCEL signed a .5 million contract to complete the Public Library. But once approved, the further .7 million will bring the total cost of the construction of the library under ABCEL to over million. There is no available estimate of the cost of construction undertaken before the company took control of the project.
Upon completion, the 20,000 square foot multi-level complex building will be fully air-conditioned and host between 70 and 80 computers.
It will offer several rooms, including a children’s library and reading room, adult reading rooms, a modern conference room, a research and reference library, newspaper and periodicals section, staff and lobby areas, a cafeteria and a gift shop.
(Source http://www.antiguaobserver.com/?p=67741)
