The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

ALTHOUGH officials still have not identified a suspect in the incident involving damage to more than 7,000 feet of asphalt on John F Kennedy Drive, Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said yesterday that renewed efforts to finish the project could start sooner than next week now that police have nearly finished their preliminary investigations into the matter.

Speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting yesterday, Mr Davis said: “This has inevitably caused a setback but I’m advised that they will be starting almost immediately to commence the repaving of that side of the road. We’re just waiting for the police to have finished their investigations in respect to the physical evidence which I think they have done so we could move to seek to have the roads done. We could begin next week or even sooner.”

Someone, believed to be a disgruntled worker, destroyed more than 7,000 feet of asphalt on John F Kennedy Drive, doing more than $1 million in damage.

Noting that no one has been arrested in connection with the destruction, Mr Davis nonetheless said an issue involving workers who claimed to have not been paid by the contractor of the project appeared to be true. He could not say whether this spurred some persons to retaliate.

“The question is motive.” he said. “Why would someone want to do what they did in the manner they did and I think a motive could be someone who is disgruntled. I’ve heard that vendors who would’ve been supplying materials and labour have had some setbacks in payments, delay in payments, but whether that has contributed to this, I don’t know.”

Mr Davis also said the repairs on the airport gateway project will be covered by insurance of the project’s contractors.

“Repairs on the airport gateway is to be covered by risk insurance of contractors. Hopefully whatever the insurance liability will be, we’ll sit down with them to determine the balance, but the primary source for the repairs will come from the contractor’s insurance,” he said.

Continuing his discussion on Bahamians disgruntled with contractors, Mr Davis also commented on an issue involving workers at Baha Mar who are calling attention to their plight of not being paid by sub-contractors for their services in recent weeks.

He said: “There is very little we can do about it except to emphasize the need for contractors and for employers to live up to their obligations to their employees and that’s what we expect them to do; when a person has provided their labour, they should be compensated for their labour.”

Last night, a source close to Emile Knowles, the contractor responsible for the JFK roadwork told The Tribune that they do not believe that the contractor’s “late payments” may have been an issue that could have led to the incident. They also added that they did not believe any outstanding funds that Mr Knowles might owe are “to the extent” that anyone would want to harm his business interests.