By Lesroy W. Williams
Observer Reporter
(Basseterre, St. Kitts) It’s been one month since the bridge being built along the west by-pass road near the Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw Airport collapsed, killing one man and injuring two others. Today overnment officials are refusing to comment on the status of a promised investigation into the fatal incident.
The collapse killed Vincentian National Allick Toney, 64, and injured Guyanese Nationals Ian ‘Shatta’ Warde and Mortland Watterton in the process on May 14.
The work was dubbed the West Basseterre Bypass Road Project with the contractor being Professional Technologies (Anguilla) Ltd and the engineering firm, Halcrow Group Ltd.
The Honourable Earl Assim Martin, Minister of Public Works, Utilities, Transport and Postal Services on the day of the accident promised that “there will be a full and thorough investigation into what went wrong.”
What Mr. Martin did not say is that the investigation would be speedy or given top priority.
According to Mr. Martin, a consulting firm out of St. Lucia was assigned by the Caribbean Development Bank (C.D.B.) to the project.
To date, the public has not heard whether such investigation has begun. Calls to the Ministry of Public Works, Utilities, Transport and Postal Services to inquire into the promised investigation have been futile.
The Honourable Nigel Carty, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Sustainable Development and Information said that the Government’s responsibility in the collapse of the bridge is minimal. Mr. Carty said although the government is very concerned over the incident, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is in complete control of the West Basseterre Bypass Project.
An officer of the bank disagrees.
An officer working in the Economic Infrastructure Division at the Caribbean Development Bank in Barbados said their Bank was only the loaning agency that funded the project. The Government of St. Kitts and Nevis were their clients, according to the bank officer, and the St. Kitts and Nevis government are the employers. The Government was responsible for hiring the contractors and engineers. The CDB said that they have nothing to do with the investigation and that it is totally in the hands of the St. Kitts and Nevis government.
Observer columnist Mr. Washington Archibald stated in a May 23 article entitled “Inexcusable Incompetence:”
“The announcement by Minister Assim Martin that there will be a comprehensive enquiry into the matter does not console some people. These people are skeptical. They have already assumed that the result of the Enquiry will be business as usual. The dead man will be buried; his family will probably receive some kind of compensation. The injured may receive some money to salve their wounds, and nothing else will change.”
Mr. Archibald in the same article said that he was surprised that the “massive tragedy was not followed by a louder crescendo of outrage from the general public.”
“I wonder whether the muted response to a fiasco of this magnitude was because our public has become so saturated with pain that one more degree yields diminishing returns in its response,” Mr. Archibald wrote in his article.
Mr. Archibald alluded to the fact that perhaps there was not a louder outrage from the general public because the victim of the fatality was a Vincentian and the injured victims were Guyanese.
“Whatever is the reason for our approach to this tragedy, there is no question that is it indeed very serious. For a new brand bridge to collapse before even the first vehicle crossed it, is such a serious matter that it is going to be for a long time, one of our more serious national embarrassments,” Mr. Archibald wrote.
He further stated that he was not an engineer but that he didn’t have to be one to be able to say that the bridge collapsed because of bad workmanship at some level of engineering. He also said that he was no prophet but that he doesn’t have to be one to sound a warning to all about the bridge which this particular firm has already built. Mr. Archibald also expressed the concern that the other bridge be revisited to see whether it was just hanging by a thread waiting to collapse.
On May 30, 2008, an accident involving the collapse of a crane took place on 91st Street and First Avenue in Manhattan, New York. In an article appearing on CNN.com, entitled “Second Construction Worker Dies in New York Crane Collapse” dated May 30, it was said that Crane operator, Donald Leo, 30, died in the initial collapse. Construction worker Ramadan Kurty, 37, died the same day in the afternoon of cardiac arrest after being rushed to the hospital and another construction worker was critically injured.
Mayor Bloomberg of New York vowed that an investigation would be conducted and changes made if necessary. The investigation began the day after the crane collapse.
“I don’t need any developer or union leader or anybody else telling me about the consequences of slowing things down. Nobody wants this economy to grow more than me. But we’re not going to kill people,” Mr.Bloomberg said. (CNN.com/us May 30, 2008)
According to another CNN.com report, “Investigators Probe Whether Faulty Repairs Caused Crane Collapse” dated June 2, The New York Buildings Commission said that a total of 22 complaints were made about the construction site, six of which were related to the tower crane, though no violations were issued regarding the crane. In that same report, it also said that the collapse occurred a day after a building inspector rescinded a partial stop-work order that had been issued April 24. The order was issued after an inspection found employees had been working without a permit and operating a crane in an “unsafe manner,” according to the city’s Building Department.
The Honourable Nigel Carty, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Sustainable Development and Information said that the Government’s responsibility in the collapse of the bridge is minimal. Carty said although the government is very concerned over the incident, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is in complete control of the West Basseterre Bypass Project.
Meanwhile, Leader of the People’s Action Movement (P.A.M.) accused the government of attempting to cover up the reasons for the collapse of the bridge.
In the Sun St. Kitts/Nevis dated May 27, 2008 in an article by Saju Ng’alla, Mr. Grant said: “The collapse of that bridge was not an accident as the Assim Martin is attempting to frame it. It is, in fact, the result of gross negligence on the part of persons responsible for the design and construction of the bridge.”
“If the Prime Minister respects the Kittitian and Nevisian people he must immediately call on the governor-general to appoint a commission of inquiry,” Mr. Grant added.
Minister Carty said the government will make sure that the public’s questions as to the reason behind the collapse of the bridge are answered.
To date there has been no answers to the public’s questions and no address of their concerns.
Calls to the Ministry of Public Works, Utilities, Transport and Postal Services will continue in hope that someone will answer.
