Ambitious plans are under way in downtown George Town.

A Christian Heritage Monument is slated in Jubilee Park on the site of the old Tower Building across from the waterfront, adjacent to the Legislative Assembly.

The project has been in the works since 2010 when the estimated cost was $250,000. Time travel to 2012 and the price of the nation-building project, which isn’t being carried by nation building funds but by a Cabinet allocation instead, still isn’t off the ground.

It was supposed to have opened on Heroes Day this past weekend, but that didn’t happen. Ground was broken on the project in April last year and tendering for the works ended in September. We still don’t know who won the tender and the ground remains empty. The price tag is now at $1.5 million and the new deadline for its completion is in June during Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, marking 60 years of her reign as monarch.

The park and the monument are to honour our heroes and Christian heritage and provide a green space for such activities lunchtime concerts, picnics and other casual events.

It’s an awesome goal, but we have to wonder if the price tag is going to continue to increase if government continues to miss deadlines.