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BY ALFRED PAGEPITU
Western provincial Secretary (PS) Jeffery Wickham has clarified the offer being given to the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services to develop the site of the failed multi-million-dollar tourism complex project in Gizo.
Provincial Secretary (PS) Jeffery Wickham told Island Sun that the provincial government has done all they can in recent years to get the project up and running.
“We are not going to spend our resources investigating what has been a 7 year in waiting.
“We are obliged to know why this project has stalled for this many years but it seems no one is interested in talking to us.
“So, the onus is on the ministries responsible to tell us what is going on,” said Wickham.
He said Western provincial government (WPG) cannot continue to see each day for seven years the sickening incomplete concrete structure.
“So being responsible we must find an alternative developer.”
He said the Ministry of Tourism is fully responsible to initiate investigation but the Province has an alternative plan for the Tourism office.
“We have not forgotten the importance of the Tourism industry in the West. In fact the project is being held up for some 6/7 years by the national government, not our fault.”
“That’s a matter for the Ministry of tourism and Ministry of finance to consider but we are only a recipient of the project.”
Meanwhile concerned citizens of Western province say the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Finance have failed to carry-out their investigation into the failed project of the million-dollar tourism complex project in Gizo.
A spokesman Mr Koipala Frederick said the incomplete structure stands as a witness to corruption and poor governance that is rife in the country and the silence is deafening.
This project was a three-year national project which works should have commenced in 2014, but still there is no investigation carried out to find out why there is a delay to the building.
