Rhon­dor Dowlat

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

The con­trac­tor of the new Min­istry of Health build­ing on Queen’s Park East, Port-of-Spain, will cov­er all the di­rect costs as­so­ci­at­ed with Tues­day’s plumb­ing leak, says Emile Elias, the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of con­struc­tion com­pa­ny and de­vel­op­er NH.

Elias ex­plained that in ac­cor­dance with the Build-Own-Lease-Trans­fer (BOLT) con­tract, through which the Min­istry of Health build­ing was con­struct­ed, out­fit­ted and fi­nanced, As­cle­pius Hold­ings Ltd is re­spon­si­ble for the main­te­nance of the build­ing for the 15 years of the lease arrange­ment. As­cle­pius is owned by NH. Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd is fi­nanc­ing the MoH project.

Elias, who had just re­turned from abroad yes­ter­day, was giv­en the de­tails of in­ci­dent.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Elias said, “There was a lit­tle leak. The plumber went to fix it. It wasn’t prop­er­ly done and when they came and turned on the pres­sure floor by floor, it rup­tured be­cause the re­pair work wasn’t prop­er­ly done. Any­way, it is now fixed and every­thing is back to nor­mal and ob­vi­ous­ly, the in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and oth­er­wise are go­ing on.”

Elias added that the re­pair and clean-up op­er­a­tions were han­dled at no cost to the min­istry or the gov­ern­ment.

“It’s free. It is a mi­nor leak in a ladies’ toi­let so in a nor­mal course of busi­ness, the con­trac­tor has to fix that. That didn’t cost the Gov­ern­ment any­thing. Al­so, the clean-up would not cost the min­istry or Gov­ern­ment any­thing,” Elias said.

De­spite the re­pairs, the Min­istry of Health Ad­min­is­tra­tive Build­ing re­mained closed yes­ter­day. It is now sched­uled to re­open for busi­ness to­day.

The leak of a two-inch pipe caused flood­ing across sev­er­al floors, lead­ing to a ces­sa­tion of op­er­a­tions at the build­ing and its evac­u­a­tion on Tues­day morn­ing.

The Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UDe­COTT) con­firmed on Tues­day evening that the leak had been re­paired and clean-up ef­forts were com­plet­ed.

The build­ing, which was of­fi­cial­ly opened on Au­gust 7, 2023, by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, is equipped with of­fice space for more than 800 em­ploy­ees, 32 con­fer­ence and meet­ing rooms, a dig­i­tal li­brary, a day­care and breast­feed­ing room and two ful­ly equipped gyms.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last Au­gust, Elias said the cost of the de­sign, con­struc­tion and com­plete out­fit­ting of the build­ing was $250 mil­lion. The trans­ac­tion costs and bridg­ing in­ter­est took the cost of the build­ing and the as­so­ci­at­ed car park up to $280 mil­lion.

He said in the com­pet­i­tive ten­der process for the build­ing, NH quot­ed a lease rental cost of $7.83 mil­lion a quar­ter or $31.32 mil­lion a year, based on the all-in cost of the build­ing of $280 mil­lion. Over the 15-year life of the BOLT deal, that works out to about $470 mil­lion, which is the amount Gov­ern­ment, through UDe­COTT, will pay over the term of the lease.

Ed­i­tor's Note: In an ear­li­er ver­sion of this sto­ry we in­cor­rect­ly stat­ed that As­cle­pius Hold­ings Ltd is joint­ly owned by NH and Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd. Re­pub­lic Bank is not an own­er of As­cle­pius Hold­ings Ltd, but is fi­nanc­ing the MoH project. We apol­o­gise for the er­ror.