Montego Bay Fire Station 70 per cent complete

Omar Sweeney, managing director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), says although the construction work on the headquarters of the Montego Bay Fire Station on Barnett Street in the city is behind by three months, it will be completed within budget.

The project is costing some $550 million.

"We have about a three-month delay now due to the lock down from the coronavirus crisis. I think, however, that we are on track to finish up about November," Sweeney said while touring the facility with Prime Minister Andrew Holness yesterday evening.

"It is our intention to continue to move the project along. As you see, we are about 70 per cent complete right now,” he said.

The project, which is being undertaken by JSIF under its Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Programme, commenced last June and was to be completed in about a year.  

"We started construction last summer (June 2019) and we anticipated at the time that it would have been completed in June of this year. We are now working on allowed time within the allotted budget, and so far we have no issues," Sweeney added. 

The fire station  was closed and the building demolished in 2006 after the facility fell into disrepair. It was relocated to Freeport in Montego Bay.

Sweeney said, on completion, the Montego Bay Fire Station  will house dormitory facilities to allow for the smooth deployment of fire fighters across various shifts, with adequate administrative facilities and parking bays for five fire trucks and an ambulance.

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