Camille McEach­nie

Chi­na Rail­way Con­struc­tion (Caribbean) Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed re­sumed work­ing on the $1.2 bil­lion Crown Point In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ex­pan­sion project yes­ter­day, as Gov­ern­ment gave the go-ahead for all con­struc­tion works to re­open.

The State had closed all con­struc­tion projects in May this year to pre­vent the spread of COVID-19.

Ac­cord­ing to Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed’s chair­man Her­bert George, al­though the clo­sure slowed the phys­i­cal con­struc­tion phase of the project, work con­tin­ued on its de­sign.

He said the project’s con­trac­tors will make up lost time. The air­port project is ex­pect­ed to take two years to com­plete.

“Pro­duc­tion on-site would have been af­fect­ed. How­ev­er, its a de­sign/build project, the de­sign would have con­tin­ued. We will, as far as pos­si­ble, be mak­ing up for a lost time,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

Asked about pay­ment to res­i­dents from Block D, who re­main on the site, George said they will be com­pen­sat­ed as soon as the pa­per­work is com­plete.

“Block D peo­ple would be paid. The Gov­ern­ment has the mon­ey to pay them. Their prop­er­ties have to be re­de­fined and re-eval­u­at­ed. We had some es­ti­mates for that block but re­alised that in some cas­es, com­pen­sa­tion is in­ad­e­quate,” he said.

In No­vem­ber 2020, the Gov­ern­ment said it had com­pen­sat­ed 80 prop­er­ty own­ers to the tune of $128 mil­lion.

The com­pen­sa­tion cov­ers 19.7 acres of the 53-acre par­cel of land re­quired to build a ter­mi­nal, sev­en com­mer­cial, 15 res­i­den­tial and five mixed (home and busi­ness) prop­er­ties, the Gov­ern­ment said.

Land Ac­qui­si­tion Con­sul­tant ACQ and As­so­ciates is act­ing on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment to ex­e­cute the le­gal agree­ments and pay­ments to prop­er­ty own­ers, the State said.

Prop­er­ty own­ers have the op­tion to re­lo­cate to State-owned prop­er­ty at Shir­van Road and Cove Es­tate.