Hospital project soldiers on!
"Madam Speaker, the new Peebles Hospital has been in development for quite a number of years and, was such, that it was necessary to conduct an extensive research to obtain a comprehensive account of the expenditures incurred in connection with this major development," Hon. Skelton stated.
Hon. Skelton provided the answer in response to part a) of a three-part series of questions posed by First District Representative, Hon. Andrew A. Fahie; this section dealt with the expenditure of soft and hard costs including but not limited to consultancy, technical advice, project management, construction, etc.
He continued by saying that the figures he was able to provide included "costs relating to the Peebles Hospital extension, commonly referred to as the annex, as well as pre-construction consultancy and other related works of the new hospital's main building."
This he declared, dated as far back as 1998, encompassing some fourteen years and reflected a total of $99.4m.
Hon. Skelton gave a breakdown of this figure and stressed to the Speaker of the House that it should be noted that other associated expenditure would have been incurred by other Ministries that were involved in the project.
In relation to part b) of the question asked by Hon. Fahie regarding the amount coming from the proceeds of loan funding from all sources, Hon. Skelton announced that "$57,914,570.19 of the expenditure recorded in the Ministry of Health and Social Development was sourced through loan funding."
He added that two loans were obtained from the BVI Social Security Board in the amounts of $35m in 2007 and $15m in 2009, respectively.
"The remaining expenditure of $7,914,570.19" he noted, "was paid from a loan obtained from Banco Popular de Puerto Rico on October 8, 2009."
The final question, part c) of the 3-part question dealt with the amount expended on the hospital project to date came from local funding.
To this the Hon. Minister responded that of the total amount previously mentioned, $41.5m was directly funded through the Central Government over the last fourteen years, which equated to an average of $2.96m per year.
16 Responses to “ Hospital project soldiers on!”
Funny thing. I didn't read anything in there which sounded like an apology from Mr Skelton for the colossal waste and mismanagement of this project. It seems that no one is quite so uncaring about the damage they cause as a politician.
MARK MY WORD!!!