STEWART

Disturbed at reports of concrete decorative mouldings falling off tall buildings and endangering lives at the Sandals Whitehouse hotel in Westmoreland, the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament on Tuesday urged the Urban Development Commission (UDC) to ensure that remedial action is taken as quickly as possible.

The UDC, in turn, undertook to have the matter addressed with dispatch, advising that the main installer for the mouldings should be in the island on Friday to undertake the task of correcting the problem.

Christopher Shaw, former deputy general manager of the UDC, promised further that even if the installer did not make it into Jamaica on Friday, work would commence to remove the dangerous items to ensure the safety of staff and guests at the hotel.

Long-running inquiry

The matter was initially raised by Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, chairman of the Sandals hotel chain, during a second appearance before the PAC in the long-running inquiry into cost-overruns, reported to be US$43, on the public/private sector hotel project.

These coral stone mouldings were falling from up to four storeys high, with six pieces having already fallen off and several others removed for safety purposes, the PAC was told.

"The potential for injury to guests and staff is great," Stewart said, adding that the problem had been reported "many months ago", but had not been corrected.

The Sandals chairman com-plained about what he characterised as "the absolute neglect of our requests for the builders to come and do what they have to do to fix it".

Christopher Shaw denied that the UDC understood "the gravity of the situation" and was not ignoring requests for remedial action.

Jeremy Jones, general manger of the Sandals Whitehouse hotel, listed several other defects and deficiencies at the hotel which, according to him and Mr. Stewart, rendered it incomplete. Among other incomplete features cited were a theatre, a bar and grill, the lack of needed lighting in another bar, improper lighting in the Grand Ballroom, and a leaking waste water treatment plant. Furthermore, he said, there were ongoing repairs or replacement of defective pieces of furniture.

Costs to repair

"This is the kind of repair that would be required of a hotel that is five or six years old, not one that is currently under two years of operations," Jones added.

Stewart claimed that the costs to repair the defects and install fixtures meant that "the cash register is still running" on the cost overruns on the project.

This was rejected, however, by Christopher Shaw, former deputy general manager of the UDC, who said that such defects and deficiencies, where they occur, were the responsibility of the contractor to remedy, and would therefore not add to the cost overruns.

This was reiterated by Marjorie Campbell, general manager of the UDC.

She gave notice, as well, that no unauthorised additional expenditure on the hotel would be reimbursed.

Mrs. Campbell told the committee that occupancy at the hotel was running as high as 89 per cent, as a result of which difficulties were encountered sometimes in responding to calls to repair or replace furniture. "This has prevented us, in some instances, from dealing with the furniture issue because there are times when we have gone to the hotel and have not been able to install furniture because of the occupancy of the hotel," she said.