ST. EUSTATIUS–A decision on Island Council election in St. Eustatius will not be taken before September, said State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops during his visit to the island on Thursday in the presence of Government Commissioner Marcolino “Mike” Franco.
“I promised Parliament to inform them about the procedures and afterwards set up criteria on which we judge and validate whether these are fulfilled or not. In September 2019 the decision I take will be based on these assessments. I cannot go into details into that and I will inform Parliament, and, of course, also the people of Statia, on what my decision will be,” Knops said about the question when the delayed election of a new Island Council, which was scheduled to be held on March 20, will be taking place.
Asked about delays in the Cherry Tree Road Project, Commissioner Franco said the Public Entity St. Eustatius and the contractor had agreed upon a new end date for the project, which was originally scheduled to be concluded by the end of this month, but has now been rescheduled until October 2019.
The delay was caused because the machinery to make concrete was not on the island as yet. “At this moment the machinery is on the island, so now the contractors can pour and make their own concrete of the quality that is needed for the roads.”
Queried about whether the contractors will receive a penalty for missing the day of completion, Franco stated, “When you have a project like this and you take a big part of it away as a fee, you obtain less quality. The government sat around the table with the contractors and found out what was causing the delay. The contract was renegotiated where it stated that if the contractors did not meet the completion date, the penalty would be much higher.”
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/88750-decision-on-statia-election-to-be-taken-in-three-months
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