Gopeesingh: Sinking Fanny Village school a PNM project

Newsday was told on Wednesday that construction of the new school began in 2015 after the original school was burnt in April of 2015.

However, Gopeesingh said when he assumed office, no activity had taken place at the site for several years after the original contractor “ran into some difficulties” with the foundation.

“The contract was valued at $23.6 million and it was awarded to Ashana Construction Limited,” said Gopeesingh.

“Part of the foundation was constructed but the contractor was experiencing recurrent flooding at the foundation site. He had done a certain percentage of the work but for about two years subsequent to when we came into office, no work was done because of the problems with the foundation.” Gopeesingh said because of Ashana’s inability to continue the project, their contract was terminated and negotiations between the Education Facilities Company Limited (EFCL) and Ashana went on for about two years before Ashana was paid about $6million for the construction of the incomplete foundation.

The EFCL later hired Vikab Engineering Consultants Limited and CEP Limited to appraise and recommend designs for a new structure to deal with the water logging problem at the site.

“It is a problem we inherited and were trying to fix,” said Gopeesingh.

The consulting companies recommended that a single-storey building be built instead of a two-storey one. Gopeesingh said tenders for the new design were put out in 2014 and was awarded to Construction Services and Supplies Limited (CSSL) in February 2015 for $25 million. He could not give an exact figure for how much CSSL was actually paid, but said it would have been the usual 10 to 20 per cent mobilisation fees that contractors are paid for work started.

“I want to warn the honourable minister that he must not try to continue to mislead and continue to speak untruths.” Gopeesingh said Minister in the Ministry of Education Dr Lovell Francis’ claim that there was a plan to retrofit the school which would have ran the cost up to about $68 million was untrue. “I do not know where he got that from.

Another deliberate, vicious and sinful untruth spoken by the honourable minister.” Garcia, in response to a question from an irate parent at the Conversations with the Prime Minister event at Point Fortin on Tuesday night, said the school was discovered to have been built in “a swamp”.

Garcia said the builders were going to be held accountable for wasting public funds.

Since the original school was destroyed by fire, 250 students have been housed in a community centre and a prefabricated building close to the old school building.