There is light for the long planned and awaited new public cemetery.
The work has started on the new cemetery in lower Look Out, overlook the sea, and Minister of Health, Hon. Colin Riley says it will have up to 1,500 burial spaces.
He told ZJB news earlier this week, “The cemetery is under construction. I was on site looking at the construction work. What we are doing is ripping up the site removing a lot of the heavy boulders and then over the time we will fill it back and get it prepared,” revealing also, that the burial ground is expected to be fully operational by July 1, this year.
He said than entranceway is being developed, “…and we will have 1500 burial spaces which we are hoping will last over 30 years,” he said.
The Minister said that his Ministry is being cautious as large infrastructure projects, sometimes you run into delays because you meet on-site situations, which force engineers to rethink. The result is that “we are saying within probably the next 4 to 8 weeks we will be ready to prepare the cemetery for its first burial.”
Lookout School Rehabilitation Project
Meanwhile, following the court battle over the procurement in the contract of construction work on building 6 of the Look Out Primary School expansion project was recently concluded in the Appeal Court.
Procurement bids are being sought and with that, Minister of Education, the Honourable Colin Riley is hoping that construction work can start in the next three to four months.
In his most recent press conference the Premier reported the approval of additional funding and a time extension to the project. He revealed there would be, “new management and supervision arrangements which outlined the Ministry of Finance as the Contracting Authority and PIU as the project supervisor.” (see: http://www.themontserratreporter.com/premier-misfires-on-procurement-gom-loses-appeal-in-court/)
Minister Riley has expressed optimism that the entire project would be completed by 2014. “The rest of the project is to be retendered and will now have two completion phases, the first in September this year, and the second a whole year later,” he said.
The minister also informed, the overall investment from DFID now stood at £2.475 million and would provide additionally: Refurbished, furnished and equipped buildings at Lookout School; A multi purpose sports hall with changing rooms; IT classroom; Library, and Improved facilities for staff.
He agreed the procurement problems are now behind them (although there are whispers about the matter being taken further to the Privy Council by government). “It went into court and now it’s out of court so we are not worried about the past, we set that aside and now we’re goanna deliver a high-quality indoor sports facility for the Lookout school community and part of the reason we are building it at that location is that lookout is now our largest village and getting larger…” he said.
