On Tuesday 7th June 2022, the government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines entered into a contractual agreement with NH International (Caribbean) Limited for the construction of the Holiday Inn Express hotel at Diamond.
During the contract signing ceremony Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves while providing an overview of the hotel project that would be a 92 room facility constructed at a cost of EC$ 52 million, said that Vincentians hired during the construction of the hotel, will benefit from effective transfer of skills.
“When they went to Dominica to do work, they had gotten Dominicans to develop skills in particular areas, so they’re going to use some of them here. But what they want to do in addition to hiring the Vincentians, is to make sure that there is an effective transference of skills” Gonslaves said.
Prime Minister Gonsalves said that NH International will then be able to utilize the skills of the Vincentians trained during the Holiday Inn construction on future projects.
“They will then be able to use some of the Vincentians who worked on this project to go on other projects because they would have been developing the skills, and I think that is the way in which Caribbean companies should function” The Prime Minister said.
CEO of NH International (Caribbean) Ltd Mr Kit Kenndy also made brief comments before the signing of the contracts, focusing of the values of his company and its intention of being a truly Caribbean entity.
“We think, based on what we are seeing, we need to make sure that there is continuity between this generation and the next generation in terms of how we develop skillsets.
What we have found is that in a lot instances, is that the resources that we have, we have to buy them; when I say buy them [I mean] import them from overseas and we have to take a stance on making sure that we provided opportunities through learning, first and foremost, so that in another three to five years we can say that we are fully and totally a Caribbean outfit employing Caribbean people across the Caribbean” Mr. Kennedy said.
The construction of the Holiday Inn Express is expected to last approximately 18 months and at its peak employ in excess of 120 construction workers.
