ADOMS takes back seat to retroactive pay

The completion of the Antigua and Barbuda Department of Marine Services and Merchant Shipping (ADOMS) has taken a back seat as the government places emphasis on things it deems more pressing.
Government’s Chief of Staff Lionel “Max” Hurst said the Public Works Department has already done the calculation to determine how much additional money it will cost tax payers to complete the project.
However, Hurst said that the back pay of government workers and other financial obligations will have to be met first.
“We are aiming to ensure that the employees of the government receive their back pay and that other types of obligations that are most pressing is taken care of so we have had to just push it back a little bit. We don’t know until precisely when, we were hoping to complete it by the end of 2018 but we believe that there is at least eight weeks’ worth of work to be done there. It means that if we begin on November 1 then we would be finished by year end,” he said.
Hurst said the government was uncertain about how soon funding would be obtained to complete the building, which has been under construction for many years.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the ADOMS headquarters occurred in 2014 and at that time, officials said the construction on the new three-storey building was supposed to be completed by May 2015 at a cost of $24 million.
However, the building remains incomplete with the actual costs reaching approximately $30 million.
On August 1, this year, the Cabinet decided to dissolve the ADOMS board and halt construction, paving way for an assessment by the Department of Public Works which has been assigned to finish the job.