The Fox Hill Community Centre.
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party chairman Fred Mitchell said raw sewage is sprouting from the drains of the Fox Hill Community Centre, the shelter housing scores of people affected by Hurricane Dorian.
Last month, Fox Hill MP Shonel Ferguson told The Tribune the number of people staying at the centre posed problems for the centre’s sewage system, requiring the cesspit be pumped frequently. Good Samaritans donated money to facilitate this, she said.
Mr Mitchell said in his statement: “I am advised that raw sewage is coming up through the drains of the Fox Hill Community Centre. This is because too many people are sheltered there and the building was not meant to deal with long term sheltering of people. The cesspit has required constant pumping and obviously something has now gone amiss. The day before, one of the air conditioning units reportedly stopped working because items of clothing were hung around the machinery.
“The building is privately owned. The government was granted the use of the building as a temporary shelter. This was done even though the government reneged on its agreement to maintain the building and staff. Now they have taken over the building and it has been wrecked with no end in sight and no idea how the damage and maintenance and repairs will be afforded. I make this a public matter as the health and safety of the shelter occupants are now at risk.”
Ms Ferguson did not respond to a Tribune request for comment yesterday.
The property on which the centre resides was acquired by former minister of housing, the late George Mackey in the 1990s and conveyed to the Fox Hill Development to be held in trust for Fox Hill residents.
A multi-purpose auditorium, constructed after the Progressive Liberal Party regained power in 2002, was developed into a world-class facility during the last Christie administration with help from the Inter-American Development Bank and its Citizen Security Programme.
The Minnis administration has clashed with the non-profit organisation that owns the facility over its ownership structure and payment of its expenses.
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 5 years, 1 month ago
Where was Freddie Boy when our country so desperately needed sustained border protection?
Where was Freddie Boy when corrupt immigration officers and other corrupt government officials were allowed to continue taking bribes for decades in exchange for granting fraudulent documents to many thousands of illegal Haitian aliens?
Where was Freddie Boy all those decades when the shanty towns should have been eradicated and the many thousands of illegal Haitian aliens rounded up and deported at the earliest possible opportunity?
Does Freddie Boy even know that over the years many of our public schools and healthcare facilities have had similar sewerage problems due to the overcrowding problems caused by the many thousands of illegal Haitian aliens who have overwhelmed our country?
Most 'true' Bahamians wish there was a way we could deport the very despicable Freddie Boy to a place as far away from The Bahamas as possible.
Ton_Heijnmans 5 years, 1 month ago
It's one enormous fire trap.
And we are not taking about your Tommy-Brit clothing line. We mean 火焰陷阱.
If these shipwrecked volk weren't seen as trash from day-one, the foresight (and common sense) would have existed for Doktor Minus and the F*ing-M Trubadorés to dispatch mobile barracks (clothing, some basic equipment and tents, such as those the "dirty" foreigner internationals sleep in) ... so those who wanted to ... could remain to kickstart the clean-up OPs.
It's actually cathartic, activity, sense-of-role, purpose, and most importantly, physically all fired up volk, searching for purpose .... when all is lost. On Day-1.
At the least, as an option, when volk be searching for lost ones. Prevents outbreaks of disease, when one does it that way around.
Rather than creating the logistical problem associated with a mass evac? Forgotten that part already? And these people now, being mistreated, living in shit and their lives clearly all still in grave danger.
X
TheMadHatter 5 years, 1 month ago
This is standard Fox Hill Prison kind of stuff. This is not news. Every building in the Bahamas should be like this until we make the prison fit for humans.
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