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“AIRPORT ROAD PROJECT — HERE WE GO AGAIN”

Dear Editor:

 

When will things ever change?

 

For the past 34 years people have visited our Island knowing someone who knows someone and ending up getting lucrative contracts, in most cases sole sourced, only to fail to deliver the goods and walk away laughing all the way to the bank.

 

The Airport Road project certainly looks like "here we go again".

 

Whitehorn Construction low bids a major horizontal construction project and wins a bid, is given funds to secure bonding which should have been a pre-requisite before being allowed to bid, uses the funds to buy a few pick-ups (a lesson learned from ASG as soon as they receive any federal grant) and expects to sub contract the entire project to local contractors.

 

No crusher plant, asphalt plant, soils lab or equipment but they are given a 7 million dollar plus contract .

 

The reason why in the 70's we had Kong Yong Construction, JJ Welcome in the 80's, Fletcher and MacDow for the 90's and 2000's was their ability to set up to perform these major projects. Our hard working local contractors have not been geared up to handle multi-million dollar projects financially or otherwise. So, how does Whitehorn believe they can sub-contract a project this size to locals to perform?

 

ASG is already playing the blame game but their role in this particular project is reprehensible. Holding up a major project over paperwork and permits is stupid. All of this should have been in place before the bids went out. I will side with the contractor over PNRS.

 

This group is famous for wasting weeks and months over the simplest project let alone major jobs. With multiple Departments involved and each jealous and protective of their little kingdom, co-operation and co-ordination is non existent and kills progress.

 

This project has called for co-ordination from PWD, ASPA, Communications, and Bluesky. From the news articles, that has been non-existent also. Up to this point it seems to be a disaster in the making and the people getting the raw end are the Territory’s drivers and the U.S. Taxpayers.

 

Jim Brittle