Opposition parliamentarians have been weighing in public outrage denouncing plans by the Team Unity Government to construct a new Basseterre High School (BHS) on lands of the Basseterre Aquifer.
St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party chairperson, Hon. Marcella Liburd, MP for St. Christopher 2 (Central Basseterre) Wednesday described the Team Unity Government plans as “a callous and irresponsible act to build any high school on the water table.”
“We cannot take any chances. It has to be an uncaring government to do that bearing in mind that you have chances of contamination of a water system,” said Liburd, during Wednesday’s popular radio programme “Issues” on Freedom 106.5 FM and Kyss 102.5 FM. She pointed to the severe water rationing that is presently taking Place Island wide including Frigate Bay, Basseterre and Taylors.
Pointing out that with low levels from the Basseterre Aquifer, water to the dense population in Basseterre is being channeled from Cayon.
“Why would the Government want to tamper with our water system that is used daily for manufacturing, drinking, cooking, bathing and supplying hotels and restaurants when any form of contamination can affect the lives and the health of residents and visitors,” she asked.
Dismissing statements that there are buildings already nearby, Ms. Liburd pointed out that the construction of a high school to accommodate over 1,000 students, teachers and ancillary staff and labs “every day of the week using toilets, labs, and other facilities will result in additional stress to the environment.”
She called on the nation, including students, teachers, parents, residents in the Basseterre area who will be affected, hotel and restaurant owners, to speak out and protest to avoid contamination of our drinking water source by the construction of the new Basseterre High school on the Basseterre aquifer.
“Our voices must be clearly heard on this matter. Water is life. This is serious business and we cannot afford to allow politics and callous insensitivity for a school to be built on the water table with chances of contamination,” said Liburd.
Caretaker for St. Christopher 8, Dr. Terrance Drew said lamented that the students continue to suffer at the temporary facilities which are in separate locations without the necessary chemistry, physics, biology and computer labs and home management centers.
“The Christian Council, the Evangelical Association, the Bar Association, the Hotel Association and other NGO’s which were active before the change of government are now silent and stand by and watch while the students and teachers are suffering. Who will stand up for them” asked Dr. Drew.
He again called on the Team Unity Government to accept the recommendations of local scientists, the Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), the Trinidad-based Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) and the Washington, DC-based National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH.) which all recommended that the buildings could be inhabited after remedial works are completed.
Remedial works costing some EC$7 million were already carried out at the now abandoned structure when the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) left office in mid-February 2015.
Although the reports were rejected by the new Timothy Harris-led PLP/CCM/PAM Government, it still removed three buildings from the abandoned site at a cost of EC$400,000 and is using them as classrooms and the principal’s office at what they called a temporary state-of-the-art wooden structure built by INNOTECH, a Barbados company, at a cost of US$7 million .
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Desk, chairs, tables and air condition units were also removed from the buildings and installed at the temporary BHS facility as well, as the Verchild’s High School.
Government recently purchased through a third party several containers to house students but months after their arrival they remained unused in the nearby Beach-Allen School grounds.