Feb 2019 deadline for RFPs for airport terminal

A public consultation held by the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and the Airport Authority (AATT) on the construction of a new terminal building for the May this year for the ANR Robinson International Airport “is a good example of people being premature.”

So said Minister of Communication, Stuart Young, responding to queries about the terminal from reporters at last Friday’s post Cabinet media briefing at the Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf resort in Lowlands.

“In terms of accurately reporting, in the stages and the steps that we are at, the point is that a lot of noise and a lot of fuss at a very early and premature stage before the footprint of where the terminal would be built was even decided. So unnecessarily, persons may have been put through a level of anxiety,” Young said.

At the May 14 a public consultation at Rovanels on Store Bay Local Road, hosted by THA and AATT officials, residents were told Government would be acquiring 84 acres of land for the new terminal building, and that construction was to start in December.

It was established then that some 120 land/property owners would have been affected by the acquisition process with the parcel of land earmarked for the development spanning the area south of the Store Bay Local Road between Gaskin Bay Road to the east and Store Bay Feeder Road to the west.

Last Friday, Young provided and update on the project.

“The Request for Proposal would have just gone out. We, Government included, have to wait until February next year… let’s see what are the proposals that come in and at that stage it would give us an idea of the footprint and as happens all of the time, when there is development by Government, we would then engage the persons who may be affected and we would go through that process.

Young said two weeks ago full page advertisements were in the newspapers.

“The request for proposals came out for basically a BOLT transaction. They, and I believe the executing agents is NIDCO, have put out to the world at large and I also saw an advertisement placed in the leading engineering magazine in the world for the construction in a design, build, finance, BOLT transaction of this new airport terminal for Tobago, so that is where it has reached.

“The invitation has been made to anyone in the world to come build, own, lease, transfer this airport terminal facility. If I remember correctly, the deadline is February next year, so there is sufficient time,” he said.