Dear Editor,
Recently, the Government through the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports made an amount of money available to the Region 2 Administration for the development of a number of sports grounds.
My understanding is that the Regional Executive Officer with the assistance of the Youth and Sports Officer would identify these grounds and the tendering process would begin and contracts awarded to persons that submitted bids.
But because of the concern or dissatisfaction of the youths and the beneficiaries with the Pomona Playground, that is next to the Aurora Secondary School and is under the direct ownership and supervision of the Good Hope/Pomona Neighbourhood Democratic Council, I was approached and asked to air their concerns at the Local Government Committee Meeting and also the R.D.C. Meetings.
The first thing I did was to seek to have a copy of the bill of quantities, a document that will have in detail, the amount, size, quality of the materials that must be used, the amount of sand, clay and all other information including the size of the building (shed) regarding this project.
It is strange but true that after several checks with the Overseer of the N.D.C. Office in question, the Office of the R.E.O., the Assistant R.E.O., the District Development Officer and having this issue raised at several Committee Meetings the document is unavailable. The Local Government Committee, the Works Committee and also the R.D.C. Meetings are tight lipped about this important document.
The residents, especially the youths, who are the main beneficiaries of this project are very much disturbed that they did not get value for money, the quantity of sand that was placed there is far below what was expected and the shed is smaller than what was promised.
Knowing this ground well I can confirm that the broken down shed that was on the south western side of the ground was removed and placed to the south eastern side using the same old materials including the zinc sheets, and for an enormous sum of money.
There is a conspiracy not to make this bill of quantities public.
I am therefore asking that the subject Ministers, Local Government and Culture, Youth and Sports investigate.
Yours faithfully,
Archie Cordis
A.F.C. Councillor
Region 2
