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Contact:
Julita Peter
Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - The newly constructed Dennery fire station
was opened on Monday. The $2.2 million facility forms part of a broader $7.4
million investment programme by the government of Saint Lucia for improving the
island’s emergency and fire services. During the opening ceremony, Chief Fire
Officer Augustin Gaspard called on his officers to continue to demonstrate the
highest order of professionalism and efficiency to compliment the many
developments currently taking place in the Saint Lucia Fire and Emergency
Services.
According to Gaspard, “The ultimate goal of the fire service is to provide fire
protection to every community on the island. Enabling the service to respond to
any major incident within the required response time of 8 minutes, this is our
dream. We know it is a big challenge but we will not rest till the entire nation
is satisfied with the level of protection provided.”
Member for Parliament for Dennery South, Honourable Damian Greaves, expressed
his elation over what he described as a fruitful dream and added that no longer
will fire officers continue to operate under deplorable conditions. “We simply
could not afford to have our fire service department in a dismal state of
disrepair, with broken steps, broken tiles, broken sinks, and dingy walls, holes
in floors and leaks in roof. How our fire officers were able to endure this
ordeal is beyond our imagination,” said Greaves.
The Dennery fire station was designed and developed under the Project Financing
and Development Agreement between the Government of Saint Lucia and NIPRO and
was built within a twenty month period. Construction of the facility proved
economically rewarding for some fifty persons from the Dennery community who
were employed on the project. The architecture was developed by Paul Hippolyte
and Associates, whilst construction was undertaken by Charles and Jules
construction.
Prime Minister, Honourable Dr. Kenny Anthony and members of his Cabinet, along
with residents of Dennery attended Monday’s ceremony. In January, a new fire
station was opened in the town of Gros-Islet.
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