'Petty concerns'
JFB senior officer dismisses report to StJMC about leaks at new MoBay Fire Station
Published:Sunday | July 23, 2023 | 12:11 AMChristopher Thomas - Sunday Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
The Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) and the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) are dismissing concerns which were raised during May’s meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC) regarding alleged structural defects at the newly built Montego Bay Fire Station.
In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, Assistant Commissioner Floyd McLean, who is in charge of the JFB’s Area Four, rubbished the issues which Anton Morris, the JFB’s assistant superintendent in charge of St James, spoke about while presenting the fire brigade’s monthly report in May.
“I know we had a drain problem from the roof, and that was corrected some time last year. That drain problem would have allowed water to soak into the walls when it comes on the outside, and that has been corrected already,” said McLean.
“There should never have been petty concerns documented in a report and taken to the council. All of what they should have carried to the council is our readiness state, and that is where the problem comes in,” McLean added. “It is not a thing where water is in the building running all over the place, because we normally encourage the divisional commanders to hear the concern of the people on the building.”
The sentiment was shared by the JSIF Managing Director Omar Sweeney, who expressed surprise that the JFB’s leadership in St James would vocalise concern about the fire station’s reported structural issues without presenting a formal report to JSIF, which worked closely with the JFB and the local government ministry on the $534-million construction project.
“It is really not proper, in my opinion, that a Fire Brigade man can come to a parish council meeting and say ‘Boy, the building is leaking,’ without knowing if a report was properly filed. That is not appropriate,” said Sweeney.
During May’s municipal corporation meeting, in response to a query from Montego Bay Mayor Leeroy Williams, Morris said that the fire station, which was opened in May 2022, was experiencing severe leaking in some of its windows and its wet riser, the supply system which provides water to the building’s various levels.
“We have some leaking windows, and we actually had done some repairs in terms of using silicone to seal some of the windows. We have a major leaking problem with the wet riser, and we have contacted the contractor to come and have a look because they will have to remove the drywall to access those pipes, and they have given us the commitment that they will be there, but they have not been there as yet,” Morris said at the time.
The facility, which was built by contracting company Pave-Con Limited as part of JSIF’s Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project, replaced the previous Barnett Street Fire Station which had served the area for 50 years before being demolished in 2006 after being deemed structurally unsound.
No JFB representative was present at June’s sitting of the municipal corporation to give an update regarding Morris’ previous report. The matter was not mentioned in the JFB’s presentation during the municipal corporation’s most recent meeting on July 13.
McLean, the officer in charge of Area Four, insisted that the building, which has the capacity to house 250 firefighters and serves up to 200,000 residents in and around Montego Bay, is fit for use.
“The building is all right, the building is okay, and the men do not really have a problem that will prevent them from operating efficiently. Any little hitches that came up with the water system, the water tanks, and the secondary water supply have all been corrected,” he told The Sunday Gleaner. “We pointed out the issues to JSIF way up in last year, and based on the retention policy, Pave-Con would have come and done the repairs.”
Meanwhile, Sweeney pointed out that the fire station’s facilities were deemed satisfactory at the time of completion and that the warranty period, which included a defects liability period of six months after the facility’s construction ended, has already expired.
“The contractor currently has passed his warranty period, so if there is a problem and he wants to fix it out of the goodness of his heart, he probably would, but it is past the warranty period, and everybody signed off on the document to say the building is operable and everything is working,” Sweeney noted.
“I am not saying that something cannot go bad or something cannot happen, because any new building will have those growing pains, but there has to be a process in which we go to what the problem is.”
JFB’s superintendent for St James, Conroy Ghans, declined to comment on the issue, telling The Sunday Gleaner that it is “a very touchy, touchy matter.”
A Pave-Con Limited representative confirmed to The Sunday Gleaner that the warranty period has expired, adding that a follow-up would be done regarding checks that the company’s director had previously promised to carry out into the situation.