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Contractor’s ‘broken-down’ paver blamed

Sep 12, 2010 Sports

By Edison Jefford
The non-progress of rehabilitation works at the Mackenzie Sports Club (MSC) Basketball Court was yesterday attributed to the contractor’s ‘broken-down’ paver that was to be used to resurface the court that is at the centre of the embryonic controversy.
Kaieteur Sport had carried an article in its Saturday issue addressing the non-progress of all those areas that was to be part of the rehabilitation project. The resurfacing of the court, the building of a 60-feet bleacher and officials’ box are all part of the plan.
Yesterday, Lumumba arranged a press conference to deal with the issue. It was at that forum that the media was told that the contractor paver broke down, which is why the rehabilitation of MSC Basketball Court has not yet started within the allotted timeframe.
This newspaper had also mentioned that President Bharrat Jagdeo and Presidential Advisor on Youth Empowerment, Odinga Lumumba had promised the commencement of the works after a Cabinet Outreach visit to Linden more than three months ago.
President of the LABA, Abdulla Hamid had raised the deplorable state of the court when Jagdeo and Lumumba visited Linden. Lumumba admitted to speaking with Hamid on the subject. “I told them it was already programmed,” he told Kaieteur Sport.
Contracts were subsequently issued to contractors for the works, but no progress was made at the only facility for competitive basketball in Linden even though the sub-association
for the sport in the town removed both rings, awaiting the rehabilitation work.
The Linden Amateur Basketball Association (LABA) has had to stall its programmes to facilitate the works that was expected to be done. As a result, competitive basketball was removed from an overall active basketball programme within the community.
“A small contractor paver broke down. They (the LABA) have to wait. If anybody has a problem with that let them go where they can get help because the paver needs fixing,” an obviously livid Lumumba retorted, addressing this writer independently.
In addition to the broken down paver, Lumumba sought to distance his Government, stating that it is the Regional Office that is responsible for the works even though the contractual money was allotted from Government. The sum was an estimated $2.5M. He said that Regional Executive Officer, Henry Rodney should be contacted for any updates that is relative to this matter. Lumumba informed that the MSC project was part of the yearly plan of his administration to target some area that needs development.
That was said directly to address the fact that in his opinion, the Kaieteur Sport article, yesterday, made it seem as though the rehabilitation works came out of the Cabinet Outreach programme. A direct reference to the earlier article, though, could not be made.
Lumumba believed that the article on Saturday had an agenda. He said the agenda was to coerce his administration to “take away” the contract from a small contractor, which will not be done as presumably desired because Government supports small businesses.
“The implication is that Kaieteur News wants Government to take away the contracts from small contractors to facilitate the LABA timetable. Our Government will not do that because we believe in supporting small businesses,” Lumumba told the media.
He indicated that the rehabilitation of the MSC Basketball Court was half of two projects for the Region. He listed the other project as the construction of a pavilion for the Ituni Ground. He was not in a position to say when the works at MSC will commence.

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