Emperor's white elephant

THE DESIGN of the new building going up at the Emperor Valley Zoo was meant to evoke a butterfly, but the project has now assumed the shape of an entirely different beast: a white elephant.

The disclosure, on May 18, by Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Ravi Ratiram, that the project’s hefty $56 million budget has already been exhausted, while the structure stands incomplete, would appear to confirm widespread fears that this entire venture was, from day one, a frolic at taxpayers’ expense.

The minister’s announced review of this affair must be undertaken as a matter of urgency. That review should explore ways to scale back the project to prevent it from further becoming a loose, baggy monster of endless expenditure.

Consideration should be given not only to trimming the fat – eye-popping features such as a cinema, theatre, cutters bar and a wine shop raised doubts from the start even factoring the educational component of the project – but also to making the structure more harmonious with the zoo’s overall aims and with the green space within which it fits.

Looking today at the hulking structure going up next to the entrance of the Royal Botanic Gardens and across from the picturesque, low-lying Hollows of the Queen’s Park Savannah, it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to put a two-storey concrete and steel building in this location.

Yet, authorities have done precisely that.

Little thought appears to have gone into the environmental aspect. A beautiful artist’s impression of the original architectural design does not capture just how disruptive this intervention has been amid the surrounding scenery.

What makes the situation particularly tragic, however, is the fact that while this project has proceeded apace, the Zoological Society that oversees the zoo has had its budget allocation slashed from an initial $16 million in 2024 to a later revision of $11 million.

Effectively, provisions to care for the animals who are supposed to be the stars of the show have been slashed to fund an “entertainment and education” facility that has been of dubious merit from day one, with serious questions about consultation.

All of this in the face of a 2024 online petition with 41,271 signatures calling for the project to be halted, a petition that was ignored by the previous administration, from whom the UNC has now taken over this project.

Undoubtedly, project manager Udecott and PNM officials will say more in the coming weeks.

But for the moment, it seems clear that our country’s lamentable history of constructing costly vanity projects nobody asked for has repeated itself. This new building was always on shaky ground. In an economic guava season, it has become indefensible.