THE Lautoka City Council is negotiating an agreement on the engagement of services for the city’s swimming pool project.
Responding to queries from this newspaper yesterday, council CEO Mohammed Anees Khan said this would be finalised and signed next week.
Mr Khan said the completion of the swimming pool project has an estimated 11-month time-line.
“This starts with the appointment of a project manager,” he said.
“After going through a tender process, an evaluation was carried out, and a selection was done by the Government Tender Board. Currently, the council is negotiating an agreement for the engagement of services and expects this to be finalised and signed by next week. The consultancy work for the project manager will commence thereafter.”
He said once the project manager commences work, the core focus would be a stock take of what needs to be done to complete the pool for domestic use.
“But this does not restrict the use to locals only. What this means is if people start using it and we have a demand for an international competition, we can then easily upgrade it to international standards. The major requirement to make it international would be timing devices, lane ropes and launch pads.
“We can either buy it ourselves or we can hire it from the Fiji Sports Council in Suva.”
“Some pool facilities in Australia and New Zealand also have competition equipment on hire, and that could be explored if required.”
