The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

DEPUTY Prime Minister Desmond Bannister, who is also Public Works Minister, has expressed concern over the protracted construction and some technical issues at the new $12m Holmes Rock Junior High School in West Grand Bahama.

Mr Bannister – who toured the project last week with Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis – said that “the project has been a challenge”.

“The challenge to this project has been the fact that two contractors were hired to do the job, and the work was really intersecting between them; that was a real challenge, in being able to get things done appropriately between them in the way that the work was set up,” he explained.

Under the Christie Administration, two government contracts were signed for the new junior high school in Holmes Rock on September 8, 2016, with Brickhouse Construction and RCL Construction. The project was expected to be finished in 18 months.

It has been four years, and the school is still not completed.

Mr Bannister, Public Works Minister in the Minnis Administration, said: “We have tried to work assiduously to bring it to a completion because we know the importance of this and also because we have so much more work to do.”

“In Eight Mile Rock, we have to do some things with the school there because this will be a feeder school. It is going to be really critical to get things done here (at Holmes Rock Junior High School). We have really worked to get this to where it is, and we need to be able to finish it and get it opened.”

While viewing the work, Minister Bannister saw some issues in the building that concerned him.

“I have seen some things that concern me which I will be looking at, especially with my technical people. I have been taking photographs of them, and so I am concerned about one or two little things that I am seeing,” he noted.

Brickhouse Construction was contracted to build a two-storey, 28,108 sq ft structure in the main building area, comprising an administration block, staff room and support spaces, student sickbay, computer classroom, library, 16 classrooms, covered walkways, four fire stairwells, and electrical rooms. RCL was contracted to build a two-story, 10,095 sq ft structure in the main building area that comprises eight classrooms, four student restroom blocks, covered walkways, and breezeways adjacent to classrooms, in addition to other works.

In 2016, former Public Works Minister in the Christie Administration Philip ‘Brave’ Davis, had said the contracts had been costed at VAT-inclusive base sums of $5,761,735 each. Combined, therefore, the base project cost is $11,523,470. The government he said also set aside a provisional sum of $400,000 for statutory utilities for each contract.