$50m was initial budget of Ports Project - C. O. Skelton-Cline
He made the disclosure at his press conference held at the studies of CBN Channel 51 on Tuesday evening April 12, 2016 during which he spoke of “9 percent” of everything that could allegedly be disclosed about the project.
"I want to state on the record again tonight [that] never once in my tenure at BVI Ports Authority as Managing Director of the BVI Ports Authority have we given the government a budget that says that the total development cost of this project would be $50 million," Mr Skelton-Cline said.
Following the disclosure by Minister for Communications and Works Honourable Mark H. Vanterpool about the cost of the total project being $82.9 million and counting, critics asked how it was the project escalated from $50 million to almost $83 million with many aspects of it still to be completed.
"We have never represented any such thing to the government as we were the agency that was charged with the execution of this project the only figure the only number that we have given to the government as it relates to this project was a budget for $79 million dollars and some change... that's the budget... it's a line item budget that was given to the government as relates to what this development will cost and I want to make that very clear. So the notion that somehow it was $50 million and it ended up being $80 plus million and $30 million dollars just goes to it it's just ridiculous and it's not based on anything factual," he said.
Mr Skelton-Cline said the project was first a public-private partnership with a consortium which represented that they could have built the development for x amount of dollars and there would be some contributions of community efforts along the way.
However, because this team was unable to achieve financial close in the time that the government had allotted, it was at that point the project went to another procurement process.
Skelton-Cline said that the public private partnership would have afforded the opportunity to complete the project at a cheaper cost because the equipment would have been owned in some cases by the private partnership. He said too that the minute the project changed in its orientation there was no way that it would still be built for the cost of $50 million.
Skelton-Cline's three year contract with the government as the BVI Ports Authority Managing Director came to an end at the end of November 2015 and it was not renewed despite the Minister for the subject praising him for a job well done and Skelton-Cline allegedly being given the assurance that it would be renewed after the June 2015 elections.
32 Responses to “$50m was initial budget of Ports Project - C. O. Skelton-Cline”
John got this one n the back until it reaches Cabinet
You want boss ..Why u don't go back America
but he is a lousy manager.
What is most disconcerting is that the budget estimate went up by 29 million and the people were not informed of this. Why did they not come back to the people and explain the cost had risen? Did they go through the necessary protocols to get the additional financing that was required? Why not cancel the berthing agreements and downgrade the project?? Where is the transparency? Where is the Government in the sunshine?