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Dredging Delays: What’s Holding Up the St. John’s Harbour Deepening Project?
Plans to deepen St. John’s Harbour and improve access to Crabb’s Peninsula are facing further delays, with no substantive update provided during this week’s Cabinet meeting.
Chief of Staff Ambassador Lionel Hurst confirmed that the issue was not discussed at Wednesday’s session, attributing the omission to limited attendance.
Several ministers were absent, including the Minister of Information, Melford Nicholas, who was attending a funeral, while others were away on official travel.
Although no new decisions were taken, Hurst noted that Tourism Minister Charles Fernandez continues to monitor the situation closely.
The project, which aims to accommodate larger vessels—including cruise ships and ships transporting liquefied natural gas and cement—has been a government priority, but its timeline has repeatedly slipped.
“There has been a little bit of a challenge,” Hurst acknowledged, referring to the St. John’s Harbour project.
He said Blue Ocean, the company contracted to carry out the dredging, is currently focused on rock removal, which has proven to be more complicated than anticipated.
An individual has reportedly been hired to audit the amount of material removed from the harbour, in both the St. John’s port and the channel leading to Crabb’s Peninsula. However, no new timeline has been offered for when the work will be completed.
The delays have raised concerns about the economic implications for Antigua and Barbuda’s tourism and construction sectors.
Cruise tourism, in particular, relies on deepwater access, while any prolonged disruption in the delivery of cement or LNG could affect national development projects and energy supply.
Officials hope to provide an update at the next post-Cabinet briefing, pending further progress and input from the relevant ministries.
“We’re hoping that maybe next week when we report, we can have some additional information available that is not now available,” Hurst said.
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This dredging delay been dragging on too long now. Every year is a new excuse.
So we pushing ahead with what, exactly? Still can’t see no real progress at Crabbs.
Watch how they going fast now Carnival and cruise season soon come. Let’s hope it really gets done this time.
When will it actually be finished?
I hope it’s not another case of rushing through halfway work just to say something happen.
Them does always say ‘pushing ahead’ but we still stuck in the same place.LMAO