The Pirates Arms saga….. 4 long years on!
It’s been six years since the announcement wasmade that the Pirates Arms building would be demolished to make way for a brand new development; the clients have moved out since four years ago; the Pension Fund has found time and the funds to make a huge investment in Cable & Wireless….yet the nation still awaits the reconstruction of the Pirates Arms.
It was easy to demolish the Pirates Arms but it is a lot harder to rebuild what they destroyed for political reasons in 2016!
The Seychelles Pension Fund (SPF) informed that the reconstruction of the new building would start in August of the same year 2016 and that it would cost SR 450 million, which led to a public outcry triggered by this newspaper over the amount mentioned. In April 2016 the SPF in a statement stated that the costs were internal estimates only. The Pirates Arms reconstruction would consist of two buildings; one would be 12,750 metres square on the original site, whilst a second building of 8440 metres square, would include the multi-storey car park and offices. Nothing else happened until November 2017, when The Seychelles Pension Fund cut SR 150 million from the initial SR 450 million originally intended for the construction costs. This decision was informed to the National Assembly by the former Minister of Finance Mr. Peter Larose.
In December 2017, the contract for the piling works was awarded to Vijay Construction. However, in early 2018 the piling works were stopped. After the SPF received a complaint from The Central Bank that there were cracks on the floor and serious damage was being done to the CBS annex building.The SPF sent in their inspectors to visit the Central Bank to confirm the damage, and a stop notice was placed on the piling exercise by The Planning Authority. In February 2018 an independent geotechnical engineer, Ground Africa was appointed to assess the cause of the damage. Their report in early April 2018 suggested the damage was due to vibration and weak terrain.The Central Bank opted to have an independent survey by Cundall Johnson and Partners LLP, based in Dubai, to reassess Ground Africa’s report. However, in early October 2018, The Central Bank informed The SPF of their intention to demolish the annex completely.
The SPF was to restart construction in November 2018, and wanted permission from The Central Bank to demolish the annex, as was requested by The Planning Authority. New plans for piling were to be submitted in early March 2019 and the stop notice lifted. The SPF also offered to pay SR2.5 million to CBS in compensation. But, The Central Bank wanted SR10.2 million. In the end 10 million rupees was paid by the SPF to settle the matter; many people now want an explanation about why SPF had to pay CBS when it was VJ Construction that did the damage? In March 2019 Minister Loustau-Lalanne in The National Assembly, said that work would begin again when the Planning Authority approves the new piling technique and when the demolition of the Central Bank annex had been completed, which is now ongoing. It was suggested that reconstruction work on the new Pirates Arms would start around September 2019.
It’s July 2020 and there is still no sign of any construction work being done on the site.
