Government employees may once again be working from the refurbished government offices at South base as soon as April this year, the Ministry of Works has announced.
The Engineering and Maintenance Services (EMS) in the Ministry of Works is currently carrying out the refurbishment of the buildings which were extensively damaged by Hurricane Ike in 2008. The refurbishment will give additional office space for government departments and help TCIG meet its stated objective of significantly reducing high expenditure on rental accommodation.
The first phase of the renovations will bring the former Customs building back on stream by April and will give a saving of some $380 thousand per annum on rental expenditure. The other building, which formerly housed the Immigration Department, is slated for completion by August 2012.
South Base is an ex US Military base some 50 years old but the Ministry found that the damage sustained by Hurricane Ike was repairable at a reasonable cost. Special emphasis was placed on the health protection of workers and customers who will use the buildings. In that regard, the Ministry moved to address the concerns raised in some quarters about the presence of asbestos in the buildings. It called in various experts to test the materials used in the buildings and all reports show that no free asbestos was found in any of them.
The Ministry said a very different material, asbestos cement, was used as exterior cladding on the buildings at South Base. In normal use, this is a totally safe material and no special handling of the material is required as the asbestos is held tightly within the structure of the cement, the Ministry said. Asbestos cement in the form of water pipes, roofing and cladding is accepted all over the world and is still in use in a very many countries. Only when it is sawn, drilled or damaged, then subsequently inhaled, could it be a health hazard. The cladding on the buildings in South Base is painted which mitigates against this situation, the Ministry added.
Despite the acceptance of asbestos cement elsewhere, the Ministry decided to remove the asbestos cement cladding within the current refurbishment works. There will therefore be no asbestos, either free or captive within those building once the renovations are complete.
