The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) says long-stand­ing plumb­ing fail­ures at its Debe cam­pus are set to be per­ma­nent­ly fixed, with ini­tial es­ti­mates for the work placed at about $4 mil­lion, as con­trac­tors pre­pare to be­gin ad­di­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture up­grades ahead of a planned Au­gust open­ing.

Speak­ing dur­ing a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty on Wednes­day, UWI prin­ci­pal Pro­fes­sor Rose-Marie Belle An­toine said the de­fec­tive plumb­ing sys­tem, caused by shift­ing land, has been a per­sis­tent struc­tur­al prob­lem since the cam­pus was built.

Tem­po­rary re­pairs were car­ried out over the years, in­clud­ing dur­ing the COVID-19 pe­ri­od when the fa­cil­i­ty was re­pur­posed, but she said the new works should fi­nal­ly re­solve the is­sue un­der gov­ern­ment-fund­ed up­grades.