Thursday, April 23, 2009

Inquiry: Ministry Faced With Difficult Contractor

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Although there are many things to note from this article, I hope Saint Lucians take note of the following: poor planning compounds costs. Good planning saves time and money! Had we proper recording, information management and planning of our utilities earlier on, the situation with this road would not have come to such an extreme. This situation is typical all over Saint Lucia, however. WASCO does not know where a lot of its underground infrastructure is, and this is the case to varying degrees for the other major underground utilities. Further, some of us believe that we can build our houses illegally "on the road" only for government to have to expend large sums removing us when we require road expansion and widening. A case in point in poor planning from the past haunting the present is the situation on the Castries-Gros Islet Corridor. The government was forced to construct a limited capacity dual carriageway given the tight constraints caused by buildings allowed close to the road. In fact, the original design for the four-lane highway upgrade between Castries and Gros Islet estimated that over half the cost was from land and property acquisition! This forced the then government to go with the less desirable but more affordable option which we currently have today. PLANNING MATTERS!

April 25, 2009 at 2:14 AM
Anonymous said...

Yes, planning matters, but try telling that to the Minister of Planning who overrides the agents in the Planning Dept. who cite infractions.

April 25, 2009 at 4:29 AM

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