The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

STANIEL Cay residents are fed up with how long the government is taking to reopen the Staniel Cay Comprehensive School, saying students have been learning in a church for over three years.

Repairs to the school have left over 20 students without proper learning facilities.

“We as a community understand the problem to be, quite frankly, what seems to be a lack of concern and accountability on behalf of the contractor that has been awarded this project by the government,” said Keiran Miller, a resident of the island.

“In speaking to several subcontractors in the area, it seems highly likely that there’s a possibility of funds being misappropriated.”

Mr Miller said the Mount Oliveth Baptist Church had volunteered its “mission house” building as a temporary school.

“I think a reasonable amount of time has already passed,” he said yesterday. “We are now in October 2023 with still no clear indication of when the school will be available for the students to enter.”

He said residents believe a local contractor would be more motivated to complete the work.

In June 2022, Education Minister Glenys Hanna Martin said it was hoped the school would open by August 2022 at $1.9m.

Yesterday, she said: “I understand the frustration of the parents and students. I am of the view that the school must be completed as a matter of urgency.”

Luther Smith, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Works and Utilities, said the school is 100 per cent constructed, but lacks electricity.

“Everything is completed with the exception of having BPL install a transformer to the site where the school is located,” he said yesterday. “BPL Exuma was supposed to have facilitated that, but up to now, they have not yet been able to do so, and we are pursuing that with BPL as we speak to see if we can get that transformer there. Other than that, the school is completed and ready for occupancy.”

Asked why there were so many delays in the project, Mr Smith said there were funding issues and challenges getting human resources and supplies to the remote cay.