BASSETERRE, St Kitts, Jun 02 2017 – Opposition parliamentarians have joined public outrage denouncing plans by the Team Unity Government to construct a new Basseterre High School on lands of the Basseterre Aquifer.
St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party chairperson, Marcella Liburd, MP for Central Basseterre said it was “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,” Liburd said.
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.
Meantime, Caretaker for St. Christopher 8, Dr Terrance Drew 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.”
He again called on the 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.
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