No one was spared. From Richard Joachim, local contractor and chairman of NCB, which reportedly loaned money to the project, to former prime ministers Sir James Mitchell and Arnhim Eustace. The ULP spared none in its effort to snare its political opponents, using what seemed like a good political opportunity.
Ottley Hall was its political lifeline for years, before it became stale news. The party held on to it for political life, much like today, where it is trying to hold on to Kishore Shallow and cricket for a last political gasp. The Ottley Hall shipyard has lain dormant since, and no longer serves for good opportune politics, except where the opposition NDP has vowed to make it work.
Between 2009 and 2011, the government reportedly spent between EC$3.9 and EC$4.9 million on the Ottley Hall inquiry, with close to EC$1.5 million going to lawyers alone. By this time, the inquiry had been going on for over eight years.
Come full circle in 2025 with a port construction project that has been laden with problems, issues, and controversies from its inception. Will the port construction project become ULP’s Ottley Hall?
First it started with the removal and relocation of the residents, including fishermen, of Rose Place (Bottom Town). At the same time, vendors were removed from an area surrounding Little Tokyo. None of these went without controversy.
Meanwhile, the residents of North Leeward appeared blindsided by a deal between the government and a regional businessman to start a quarry operation in their backyard. They only found out when heavy equipment bulldozed their agricultural lands without warning. This, too, ignited a flare-up across the country. It’s still blazing and appears poised to become centre stage in the upcoming general elections campaign. Our information suggests that the residents of the area are just waiting to do their own bulldozing later this year, when the election is expected. The quarry was supposedly being launched to provide material for port construction.
Then came news of the need to dredge sand for use as reclamation material that the quarry was apparently going to provide. This too didn’t go without controversy, as people questioned the real purpose of the quarry and the orgasmic deal that wet-dreamed its start-up. Dredging of sand also didn’t go without controversy. Further, the need for a 700-million-dollar port drove more questions, especially since it is reported that the existing one could have been rehabilitated for under US$20 million and given that port operation does not pay for itself.
Today, there’s growing concern over the structural integrity of what many are referring to as the “sinking port”, where water is escaping into its base structure. If it ever gets completed within the cost structure, some people are putting its opening date more than a year beyond the original estimate.
EC$700 million is far more than what was spent on Ottley Hall; and if that attracted so much attention, what should become of this port construction given all the current controversies surrounding it? Will this become the ULP’s version of Ottley Hall?
Observer
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Both the ULP and the NDP have economically destroyed our beloved country with their useless projects funded by borrowed money whose interest payments are strangling us.
Argyle International Airport heads the list of failed endeavours because nearly all tourist visitors are using it as a transit point to the Grenadines, a nearly free service formerly performed for us by Barbados’s airport.
As for our citizenry, the decommissioned E.T. Joshua Airport more than served its travel needs at a very economical price.
The millions spent at Argyle would have yielded far greater rewards if used to enhance tourism infrastructure in the neglected Grenadines.
While I can appreciate the reference of the Ottley Hall issue, which became a none issue, the New Kingstown Port is a real issue. $20M to rehabilitate the current but instead $700M, moving people and businesses and then the port is now sinking. The Holy Scripture speak towards the man who builds on sand as a fool, much less a port with the activities and the dead weight. The question to be asked, is the hospital in Arnos Vale also of a similar issue? We know that area was originally a swamp and still floods. Or is it being used to distract voters from the New sinking port and the north leeward quarry?
All this is allegedly, The thermal electric plant was a spectacular failure after investing millions. Then they built a marine factory products costing millions to supply Sandals which produce maybe fifty jobs. Then we see Edinburgh road almost turning to rubble and government has no money to fix it. Then we see the PM meddling with the Cornelius John case. Then we see the good Comrade taking way Bigger Biggs stone quarry while he gives a St Lucian company permission to build a stone quarry on arable lands. Then we see a minister, the PM’s cousin, hold back donated water tanks from the public. Lord help us with this $700M port.