The Hon Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr. Roosevelt Skerrit, has revealed that construction of the indoor sports facility, on the cards for Dominica, should commence this year and will be built by local tradesmen and firms.
“The hope is that we would like to use local tradesmen to build. While we may not have the specific skills and knowledge here, in terms of the designs and so forth but in terms of the construction we would like to use our local firms to build this facility for us in Dominica.”
The indoor sports facility is one of the upcoming projects the Government hopes will elevate sports in Dominica.
The Hon Prime Minister detailed the infrastructural plans for the facility; one of the main components being an indoor swimming pool.
“We expect this year to commence the construction of the international standard indoor facility to allow for basketball, volleyball and netball to be played indoors. Also, there will be tennis courts and outdoor basketball courts, outdoor volleyball court… also, importantly there will be a swimming pool that will be open to Dominican public. As it is now, if you want to learn to swim competitively or if just want to learn to swim you have to go to someone’s private facility and I don’t think in the second decade of the 21st century our country should be subjected to that.”
The Minister of finance confirmed that funds for developing this facility have already been secured.
“We have the funds to construct the facility, it’s just a matter of going through the designs and then going through the procurement.”