During his opening remarks, Minister for Communications and Works, Honourable Mark Vanterpool highlighted the importance of the workshop as Government seeks to improve the management of contracts locally to ensure value for money.  “As we continue to improve infrastructure within the Territory, contractors are important and need to be in the middle of the infrastructure works,” he said.  According to Minister Vanterpool, he wants the money that was borrowed as part of the loan project to be spent locally so everyone can benefit from it.  “That is why we are preparing you to deal with these types of projects.”

Project manager and Chief of Infrastructure Planning Research and Development, Dr. Drexel Glasgow explained that the loan has four components, institution strengthening which includes flood risk assessment and drafting of planning regulations, engineering consultancy, project management and infrastructure works.  Dr. Glasgow explained that it is the Ministry’s quest to develop a sustainable training and education programme for contractors, to prepare contractors to bid competitively locally and regionally, to educate them on Government’s policies and guidelines and to motivate them to build safely.

Contractors seemed to be very engaged with the material that was presented.  They discussed the information and were able to ask a number of questions on various topics throughout the workshop.  The consensus from the contractors was that the workshop was very informative and they appreciated the information they were exposed to.

The Infrastructure Rehabilitation Loan Project is a joint venture between the Government of the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean Development Bank to improve the Territory’s infrastructure that was damaged as a result of the impact of sub tropical storm Otto in 2010.