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With near­ly all of a $19 mil­lion con­tract al­ready paid to a con­trac­tor for the re­fur­bish­ment of the Chatham Youth De­vel­op­ment Ap­pren­tice­ship Cen­tre, Sports and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter Phillip Watts is now ques­tion­ing where the mon­ey went, giv­en that the project is on­ly 70 per cent com­plete.

The up­grade, which be­gan in mid-2022, in­clud­ed the con­struc­tion of new dor­mi­to­ries, the re­fur­bish­ment of ex­ist­ing build­ings, and the ad­di­tion of a sick bay, laun­dro­mat, and gen­er­al in­fra­struc­ture im­prove­ments.

The Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (NMTS) was award­ed the project man­age­ment con­tract, and the work was ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in ten months. How­ev­er, two years lat­er, the com­pound re­mains a con­struc­tion site.