$60M more for UWI South Campus works in budget; Hosein says it’s still too deteriorated to open

SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shar­lene.ram­per­[email protected]

The Prime Min­is­ter’s dream to see the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies South Cam­pus in Debe be­come op­er­a­tional af­ter ly­ing idle for al­most a decade has so far cost tax­pay­ers $70 mil­lion.

To fur­ther that project in 2027, the Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed an­oth­er $60 mil­lion.

That is ac­cord­ing to the Draft Es­ti­mates of De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme Ex­pen­di­ture 2027.

Un­der Head 72, the Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing (MTEST), the re­pairs were list­ed as “re­fur­bish­ment of the Pe­nal/Debe Cam­pus.”

For 2026, the es­ti­mat­ed cost was $70 mil­lion, with the re­vised es­ti­mate al­so at $70 mil­lion.

For 2027, the es­ti­mat­ed cost is $60 mil­lion.

In the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme 2027, the al­lo­ca­tion was list­ed as “Re­fur­bish­ment of the Pe­nal/Debe Cam­pus—con­tin­u­a­tion of re­fur­bish­ment and restora­tion works at the UWI South Cam­pus, Debe, with an al­lo­ca­tion of $60.0 mil­lion. The scope of works will en­tail the com­ple­tion of the Moot Court, Cen­tral Li­brary, Aca­d­e­m­ic Build­ing, the Stu­dent Union Build­ing and the Hall of Res­i­dence.”

But in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein said the ex­pen­di­ture so far to re­pair the cam­pus may not have been so high.

“Based on the re­port that I have re­ceived for the last fis­cal year, be­ing fis­cal year end­ed 30 Sep­tem­ber 2026, we did not spend $70 mil­lion,” Ho­sein said.

Ho­sein was asked whether the Gov­ern­ment could pro­vide an up­date on the open­ing date, as he had an­nounced on March 19 that the cam­pus would be up and run­ning by Sep­tem­ber 2026.

“There has been works on­go­ing, how­ev­er, with re­spect to var­i­ous pack­ages at the cam­pus. While we did in fact in­di­cate that we were try­ing to get the cam­pus open by Sep­tem­ber, be­cause of what we found when the works ac­tu­al­ly start­ed, be­cause this is some­thing that is not strange to con­struc­tion, is that when you’re ac­tu­al­ly get­ting there, you re­alise the works that have to be done,” Ho­sein said.

Ho­sein said at this time, the Gov­ern­ment could not pro­vide an es­ti­mat­ed cost of the to­tal re­pairs.

“Based on the on­go­ing work, I can then tell you, be­cause as I tell you, we are dis­cov­er­ing more and more de­fects and so on as we go along, which ac­counts for vari­a­tions and so on.

“As soon as the project is fin­ished, we will give the fi­nal cost; that is not a dif­fi­cul­ty.”

He said a con­di­tion­al as­sess­ment done be­fore the re­pairs be­gan did not re­veal the true ex­tent of the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the cam­pus.

“But, as I ex­plained, which is not strange to con­struc­tion, when you ac­tu­al­ly start the work, then you re­alise some­times when you get in­to the build­ings and so on, in more de­tail, you re­alise that there are more and more works to be done.”

At a tour of the Cam­pus in April, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “It is very painful to know that it stood idle for al­most ten years, a lot of work to be done, but you can still see the beau­ty of it.”

“I’m very pleased with what I’ve seen, in spite of de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in sev­er­al ar­eas, but it can be re­paired and brought back ful­ly on­board,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added then.

She said she hoped that the Cam­pus would be com­plet­ed, with stu­dents “on board”, be­fore any oth­er changes took place in the coun­try, ref­er­enc­ing the change in ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2015 when the then-UNC led Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship lost the gen­er­al elec­tion.

“That is my dream right now, that is my goal, that is my vi­sion, that is my mis­sion to get this Cam­pus up and run­ning,” she said.

At a post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence on March 19, Ho­sein said the Cab­i­net had not yet tak­en any de­ci­sion about what pro­grammes or what fac­ul­ty would be placed in the build­ing.

“Those mat­ters are still in progress... be­cause our first pri­or­i­ty is to get the build­ing up to scratch,” Ho­sein said then.

Guardian Me­dia called and sent mes­sages to UWI Deputy Prin­ci­pal Prof Derek Chadee on Oc­to­ber 16 and 17 about the de­lay to the South Cam­pus open­ing but up un­til pub­li­ca­tion time, there was no re­sponse.

The UWI South Cam­pus was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to open in 2014, but the project was de­layed and the cam­pus was not of­fi­cial­ly opened for aca­d­e­m­ic op­er­a­tions.

The al­lo­ca­tion for re­pairs is part of a $68 mil­lion Gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion for im­prov­ing the UWI’s in­fra­struc­ture.

Al­so list­ed un­der that al­lo­ca­tion are the pro­cure­ment of spe­cialised equip­ment for the In­ter­na­tion­al Fine Co­coa In­no­va­tion Cen­tre of $.8 mil­lion to en­hance its ca­pa­bil­i­ty to pro­duce a wider va­ri­ety of prod­ucts; ren­o­va­tion of the Chem­istry C1 build­ing and re­place­ment of fume hoods at a cost of $.7 mil­lion; and $.2 mil­lion for pay­ment for the in­stal­la­tion of a new HVAC sys­tem in the in­door court area, ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices and class­room.

The Draft Es­ti­mates of De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme Ex­pen­di­ture 2027 states that in 2026, $1 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for the con­struc­tion of the Fine Co­coa In­no­va­tion Cen­tre, while the re­vised es­ti­mate was $.8 mil­lion. In 2027, an­oth­er $.8 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for this project.

The ren­o­va­tion of the Chem­istry C1 build­ing and re­place­ment of fume hoods was es­ti­mat­ed to cost $18.6 mil­lion, with a re­vised es­ti­mate of $6 mil­lion and an al­lo­ca­tion of $7 mil­lion for 2027.

For the in­stal­la­tion of the new HVAC sys­tem and as­so­ci­at­ed works at the UWI Sports and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre, the es­ti­mat­ed cost was $2.51 mil­lion, with a re­vised es­ti­mate of $1 mil­lion and a fur­ther $150,000 al­lo­cat­ed in fis­cal 2027.

The UWI is not the on­ly ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tion re­ceiv­ing large al­lo­ca­tions for in­fra­struc­ture works in 2027.

The Draft Es­ti­mates of De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme Ex­pen­di­ture 2027 al­so lists a $50 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Tamana cam­pus.

The PSIP out­lines the de­tails of this al­lo­ca­tion, which in­clude the re­fur­bish­ment of the chiller and cool­ing tow­er sys­tem; re­fur­bish­ment and up­grade of the sew­er lift sta­tion sys­tem; cor­ro­sion treat­ment and re­place­ment of mi­ni split air-con­di­tion­ing sys­tems.

This project will be fund­ed un­der the over­all $59.7 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to the UTT.

Oth­er projects un­der this fund­ing in­clude in­fra­struc­ture up­grade work for the East­ern Caribbean In­sti­tute of Agri­cul­ture and Forestry, es­ti­mat­ed to cost $2 mil­lion; im­prove­ment of fa­cil­i­ties at the John S Don­ald­son Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute es­ti­mat­ed at $1.6 mil­lion; up­grades of fa­cil­i­ties and equip­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $2.4 mil­lion; and $.8 mil­lion for up­grad­ing the roof of the UTT Point Lisas Cam­pus.

Fund­ing for the up­grade of UTT cam­pus­es at $2.5 mil­lion for in­fra­struc­ture im­prove­ment work and the es­tab­lish­ment of the Avi­a­tion In­sti­tute—UTT Cam­den Phase 1—at a cost of $.4 mil­lion are al­so in­clud­ed in this al­lo­ca­tion.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so al­lo­cat­ed a fur­ther $33 mil­lion for na­tion­al skills de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives at the MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre, the Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme, the Na­tion­al Ap­pren­tice­ship Pro­gramme, the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of High­er Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (NI­HERST), the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of Trinidad and To­ba­go (COSTAATT) and UTT.