Fmr Ports Boss defends TPP price tag
The matter was raised by Honestly Speaking’s Guest, this week, Wednesday January 16, 2019—Independent Candidate, Mr Rajah A. Smith—in light of the recently publicly released, Audit Report into the project—which remains inconclusive, a result of missing documents.
Failing/Duping People
Smith was at the time blasting the NDP government for not only failing the people of the Virgin Islands (VI) but also for duping them at each election cycle.
Drawing reference to words ‘transparency and accountability,’ as being bandied about by politicians at each election cycle, Mr Smith spoke to the perceived cost overrun on the TPP Project and the fact that contracts are handed out just prior to elections and that there needs to be a cut off point for such practices.
Skelton-Cline defends
Honestly Speaking’s Host and former Managing Director of the BVI Ports Authority, Mr Claude O. Skelton-Cline, at this point immediately sought to set the record straight and said that it was the Administration which peddled a $50M construction cost and not the Authority.
He told smith and radio listeners, that the BVI Ports Authority had in fact submitted a budget to the government for $79M and had never bandied about a $50M price tag.
According to Skelton-Cline, when the BVI Ports Authority had been commissioned to do the project—at which point he was at the helm of the entity—a private consultancy company, BCQS was brought in to do an evaluation of project and they had supplied a budget of $79M.
This, he said, is the only budget ever turned over from the Ports Authority to the Government and Finance Ministry.
Mr Skelton-Cline was adamant that it was the private sector that initially touted a $50M price tag for the TPP and that government simple ran with this figure, since this was what was already provided to the United Kingdom (UK) Government in its mid-term report.
The radio host and former ports authority boss reminded that when the project was initially conceptualized, it was supposed to have been pursued under a Public/ Private Partnership model.
Mr Skelton-Cline, pointed out that in such a case, the private component of the project would include that partner brining in their own equipment such as cranes and personnel such as Engineers.
He was adamant the project being undertaken by the government alone, could in no way cost $50M.
In fact, Mr Skelton-Cline claimed that the matter was raised with the Minister of Finance and Premier, Dr the Honourable D. Orlando Smith (AL), who simply brushed it aside—a situation he had deemed problematic ever since then.
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