Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Work is con­tin­u­ing on the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Debe Cam­pus as the Gov­ern­ment moves to com­plete the fa­cil­i­ty as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, says Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Prakash Per­sad.

Asked whether the re­open­ing of the cam­pus re­mains on sched­ule, Per­sad said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will make that an­nounce­ment at the ap­pro­pri­ate time.

“The Prime Min­is­ter will make the an­nounce­ment at that time, but at this point, the work is go­ing on,” Per­sad told Guardian Me­dia.

A dri­ve along the M2 Ring Road showed a work crew and ve­hi­cles out­side the com­pound, with scaf­fold­ing erect­ed on the ex­te­ri­or of a build­ing at the pe­riph­ery of the cam­pus.

How­ev­er, sig­nif­i­cant fo­liage re­mains vis­i­ble on the sport­ing grounds and sur­round­ing ar­eas when viewed from the Solomon Ho­choy High­way.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for an up­date on the works, UWI prin­ci­pal Pro­fes­sor Rose­marie Belle An­toine said she had no fur­ther in­for­ma­tion to share at this time, but the in­sti­tu­tion would pro­vide an up­date when it be­comes avail­able.

In March, An­toine said long-stand­ing plumb­ing is­sues linked to shift­ing ground con­di­tions were ex­pect­ed to be ad­dressed through gov­ern­ment-fund­ed up­grade works. Ini­tial es­ti­mates to re­solve the prob­lem were ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4 mil­lion.

While tem­po­rary re­pairs had been car­ried out over the years, in­clud­ing dur­ing the COVID-19 pe­ri­od when the cam­pus was re­pur­posed, con­trac­tors were ex­pect­ed to un­der­take ad­di­tion­al in­fra­struc­tur­al works.

Mean­while, UWI has al­ready com­plet­ed sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­nal up­grades, in­clud­ing the in­stal­la­tion of fur­ni­ture, floor re­fur­bish­ment, re­paint­ing of build­ings and ma­jor in­vest­ments in in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy in­fra­struc­ture.

At a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing ear­li­er this year, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment would as­sume full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for all re­pair works at the cam­pus.

He said Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd (PSAEL) would car­ry out the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion works, with the aim of al­low­ing class­es to be­gin at the South Cam­pus at the start of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year in Sep­tem­ber 2026.

In April, Per­sad-Bisses­sar toured the cam­pus as re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion works com­menced, say­ing the re­open­ing of the fa­cil­i­ty would not on­ly ben­e­fit stu­dents but al­so stim­u­late eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and cre­ate jobs in sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.