064/2018
Basseterre, St. Kitts, January 31, 2018 –Legislation to sell off the assets of the St. Christopher Air and Sea Ports Authority (SCAPA) was pulled from the Order Paper during last week’s sitting of the St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly, Deputy Political Leader of the opposition St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP), Dr. Earl Asim Martin disclosed Wednesday.
“A Bill to privatise SCASPA and sell off its assets was scurried off the Order Paper. The over-priced Second Pier project has put us in a pickle and we will all pay for this act of corruption,” said Dr. Martin during the SKNLP monthly Press Conference.
Dr. Martin said the construction of the second pier at Port Zante is yet another example of the Team Unity Government’s incompetence and failure to make sound fiscal decisions to the country’s benefit.
“The pier was originally budgeted to cost US$31 million. Yet, the coalition government decided to discard every single plan the Labour administration had already set for the new pier and go a different route. Dr. Harris’ Team Unity decided it was wise to not only start from scratch and delay the project by three years.
“As a result of their actions, the second pier will now cost the country US$48 million, a 50% increase in the cost of the project. A grand loan of US$34 million (or EC$92 million) was taken from the National Bank because other banks must have thought that the cost of construction of US$48 million was unjustified,” said Dr. Martin, who served as Deputy Prime Minister in the latter half of the previous Labour administration.
