A suspension of construction work at SJM Holdings Ltd’s new Cotai casino resort Grand Lisboa Palace (pictured) has entered its fourth week, a government official confirmed on Tuesday to GGRAsia.
The work halt was ordered by Macau’s Labour Affairs Bureau on June 18. That day a 47-year-old worker from mainland China died after falling 10 metres (33 feet) at the HKD36-billion (US$4.63-billion) project.
“The contractor [of the casino resort project] is still making the related rectification works required at the construction site,” the spokesperson told us on Tuesday by telephone. “And we will have to see whether all the work safety compliances are in place at the site,” the person added.
The bureau added that the duration of the suspension would depend on the outcome of its checks at the Cotai casino resort site.
“Construction work [at the] Grand Lisboa Palace site is currently suspended,” the public relations department from Grand Lisboa Palace separately confirmed to GGRAsia on Wednesday. It said that SJM Holdings had already submitted a “detailed investigation report” on the June 18 fatal accident to the Labour Affairs Bureau.
“We will continue to cooperate with the bureau for further inspections, and ensure strict compliance to all safety requirements by all our contractors/subcontractors at the site,” the public relations department added.
GGRAsia asked SJM Holdings when it expected the construction works at the project site could resume, but the public relations department did not comment on that topic.
The company’s chief executive, Ambrose So Shu Fai, forecast to media in May this year that the Cotai project would open in the second half of 2018.
The Grand Lisboa Palace will feature “a total of approximately 2,000 hotel rooms and suites, facilities for meetings and conferences, shopping, dining and entertainment, and a casino”, according to SJM Holdings’ annual report 2016 filed in late April. The new Cotai project includes hotel towers bearing the insignia “Grand Lisboa Palace”, “Palazzo Versace” and “Karl Lagerfeld”.
VIP play would be a prominent feature of the casino operation at Grand Lisboa Palace, an executive director of SJM Holdings, Angela Leong On Kei, told GGRAsia in an interview last year.
