ALL EYES will be on Minister of Health John Boyce next week.
Then, if he remains true to his word, he will reveal just how large an overrun has taken place at the David Thompson Health and Social Services Complex.
Cou Cou understands it could be as much as $20 million.
In fact, our reliable source described what has happened in the construction of the St John located polyclinic as “a cost marathon” and not an overrun, as it has more than doubled what it was supposed to cost.
The polyclinic was started in 1991 but the project was stopped at the height of the economic crisis by the then Democratic Labour Party Government. It was never restarted until March 2011 after the DLP regained office, and it opened in November 2015.
The estimated cost when it began was $16.3 million. Since then, two additional supplementaries – in 2012 and 2014 totalling just over $7 million – were sought.
And last month in the Estimates, Boyce sought another supplementary. This time it was for $2.5 million for construction costs for the facility. This suggests the final price could be over $30 million.
In the closing stages during debate on the Estimates last month, the Opposition suggested that the cost overruns were as high as 170 per cent.
In response, Boyce said it was not a straightforward construction project and undertook to present the final figures for it “within the next 30 days”. That deadline runs out by Tuesday next week.
When the minister speaks, he is expected to give an account on the total cost of construction for the polyclinic and whether the last supplementary would be the final sum needed to pay in relation to that facility.
Parties gearing up for poll
BARBADOS LABOUR PARTY (BLP) supporters who are confident of winning the next general election better think again.
The ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) will be even more difficult to beat in 2018 when the poll is due or later this year if it is called earlier as many anticipate.
Two leading DLP operatives told Cou Cou this when they revealed that the party had replaced three quality St Michael candidates by even better ones.
Patrick Todd in The City, Patrick Tannis in St Michael South East and Kenny Best in St Michael East were replaced by the three new candidates.
One of the experienced canvassers noted that both Todd and Best won in 2008 but had hard losses in 2013 – 124 votes and 119 votes, respectively. In Tannis’ case, he lost his first time outing by a mere ten votes.
By replacing each of them, he argued, the DLP is clearly showing their depth of excellence, and are therefore confident of being able to win the respective constituencies.
The one everyone expects to be a cliffhanger is in St Michael South East where Rodney Grant, the chief executive of the grass roots Pinelands Creative Workshop, is expected to be a handful for the sitting BLP representative, Santia Bradshaw. The Dems feel his extensive knowledge of the people in that densely populated section of the constituency will tip the scales this time around.
A BLP supporter however countered that if the DLP was a smoothly functioning machine that operates on facts, it would have no need for such a shake-up.
To him, it shows the DLP are worried. And, he said, just how concerned they are could be seen from the mid-week, daytime mass canvass held by Cabinet minister Steve Blackett in St Michael Central. He regained that seat by 39 votes in 2013.
