In a recent Facebook post former Education Minister and local attorney called out the present Government of the Virgin Islands on the handling of the rebuilding of the Elmore Stoutt High school.
Recently the demolition of the Elmore Stoutt High School (ESHS) buildings which were ravished by the hurricanes of 2017 have been completed and Premier and Minister for Finance, Hon. Andrew Fahie said he is pleased, making way for the rebuilding of new buildings on the campus.
Fahie said via a social media post on Friday, January 7th, “You cannot get any clearer than this! The 1st phase of the Redevelopment of the Elmore Stoutt High School Campus since the destruction of many buildings by Irma in 2017 has been completed ahead of schedule. All the old foundations were demolished and removed.”
Fahie continued: “The contractor, Sand Wise Ltd. did an outstanding job. The Minister of Education & 7th District Representative, Dr. The Hon. Natalio Wheatley has surveyed the now cleared property and is pleased. Now on to phase two as it is soon time for the construction of the new buildings. To God alone be all the GLORY!!! We’re in this together. Our students & teachers of ESHS are coming back home in 2022.”
On December 2nd, 2021, the Government of the Virgin Islands signed two contracts, one with Trojan Design & Development Limited for design consultancy services valued at $99,480, and the second contract was inked with Sand Wise Limited for the demolition and debris works clearance valued at $136,079.50.
However, former Education legislature Myron Walwyn is saying, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
Walwyn said in a recent Facebook post, “We must get to the point of political maturity where we build on work that was done by previous governments. We must choose saving tax payers resources over political expediency. A comprehensive plan for the redevelopment of ESHS was done by the NDP way before the hurricanes of 2017.”
What happened to the plan for ESHS and CDB loan established under the previous Government?
Presenting a published article to the public, Walwyn continued, “As you will see from the article below, a loan facility of over 9 million was approved by the Caribbean Development Bank to assist with this in 2017. CDB would have been very much involved in the project even to point of doing capacity building for educators. Let’s start to think country and not self.”
The two term legislator then called on Government to, “Resurrect the existing plans and make the requisite amendments, complete the process with the CDB loan and let’s build an institution that could properly serve the needs of our children just as was intended by our government.”
He then implored leaders to, “Drop the old politics! Haven’t we learnt anything from the Commission of Inquiry?”