The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

BUSINESS owners impacted by the New Providence Road Improvement Project yesterday said they were still waiting to see what sort of compensation they would receive after completing the Ministry of Finance's survey, one telling Tribune Business he felt the move may have simply been a "gimmick".

Dionisio D'Aguilar, president of the Superwash laundromat chain, who saw five locations hit, told Tribune Business: "They dropped off some forms shortly after the Prime Minister had made the announcement. They said they wanted it back as soon as possible. I have yet to submit it.

"It is a lot of financial information that they are asking for, and that takes time with an operation as complex as mine. I am not even touching this until after the election. Let me see if they are serious. I'm not convinced that they are serious about it."

Mr D'Aguilar added: "People don't understand how dehabilitating this process is. You have the loss of sales, disruption to entrances and exits of your business, as well as the elevation of the road to deal with.

"At my Blue Hill and Carmichael Road location, they have taken so much of the existing parking lot I'm going to have to reconfigure the whole thing. That's probably going to cost between $100,000-$120,000."

Fred Rahming, owner of Builders Mart on Prince Charles Drive, told Tribune Business: "They came around and gave us forms to fill out in terms of what we would have lost. Nothing has been heard since. Everything is still at a standstill. It seems to me that it was just a gimmick. They said they were going to work on it right away."

Brenda Moore, owner of Die Hard Game Club on Robinson Road, said she was simply "tired of the noise in the market".

She told Tribune Business: "They did bring some papers; that's all they did. We haven't heard anything from them since. That was the latter part of March. They told me we had five days to submit. I told them that based on the information they needed I couldn't get it in five days because I had to go back in my files to 2007.

"I sent it in after 10 days to a week. I'm just tired of the noise in the market. I have decided to just be still and let God deal with this thing. I did what they asked and now I'm just sitting and waiting."

Barry Kemp, proprietor of A1 Lock and Key on Market Street, told Tribune Business: "So far they came and brought us questionnaires, which I filled out. It's been a little over a month since they came, but I haven't heard anything.

"Initially, someone said that they would get back to us in two weeks, but it's been a little over a month now and no one has contacted us. I heard that there are two businesses they say have been compensated, but no one seems to know who they are. I'm just taking everything with a grain of salt and just waiting."

Minister of state for finance, Zhivargo Laing, told Tribune Business yesterday that information from the survey was still being received and assessed.

He did not confirm whether any business had yet received compensation, telling Tribune Business: "We are still getting information in and still accessing information. The work continues, the assessment continues, we are still waiting to receive information and still assessing information we have received."

Back in early March, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announced in the House of Assembly that the Government would initiate a door-to-door survey along the corridors of the New Providence Road Improvement Project (NPRIP) where work has been completed, with the aim of identifying those enterprises whose business had been meaningfully impacted.

Armed with the results of the survey, Mr Ingraham said the Government would be in a position to determine the major parameters of a financial assistance programme. The Prime Minister said business license and real property tax rebates were also being eyed as options. The Ministry of Finance began conducting the door-to-door survey on March 21.