STEWART

The Gordon Butch Stewart-chaired Gorstew Ltd. has labelled as "baseless" claims that cost overruns and delays on the controversial Sandals Whitehouse hotel project resulted from non-payment of equity by partners on the construction.

Alston Stewart, head of Nevalco, the firm contracted to manage the project, yesterday accused Implementation Limited and Sandals Resort International (SRI), which acted for Gorstew, of constantly violating contractual arrangements on the project. He implied that these violations resulted in the cost overruns which ran into more than US$43 million.

Mr. Stewart, who was appearing before Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to publicly discuss the project for the first time yesterday, attempted to absolve himself of some of the blame laid by the reports of Contractor General and the forensic audit.

Yesterday Mr. Stewart said SRI and Implementation Limited would constantly make major changes to the project without consulting him.

"They (Implementation Limited) consistently violated the arrangements," he said. "There is reference made to my laying out proper administrative procedures that were not followed. They were not followed, not because I refused to follow them, (but) there were major players who refused to follow them and I am speaking in particular of Implementation Limited and to some extent SRI."

Direct instructions

Mr. Stewart said these players (Implementation Limited and SRI) would sometimes go directly to the contractors and give them instructions.

In a statement yesterday, Gorstew dismissed the Nevalco head's comments to the PAC and pointed out that its own chairman has accepted the PAC's invitation to attend the committee meeting with his team.

"At that time, Gorstew's position will be fully ventilated," the project partner said.