Williams pushing for urgent repairs to schools

Western Bureau:

Education Minister Fayval Williams says the technical skills of quality surveyors are to be utilised to assess rehabilitation works that are now being carried out to retrofit 107 of the 352 schools that were damaged during the July 3 passage of Hurricane Beryl.

The other 245 schools, which also sustained damage of varying degrees, have been placed in what Williams described as Priority Two and Priority Three, with 137 and 113 schools respectively. They are to be repaired over an extended time frame while schools are in operation.

Williams said that given the urgent need to have educational facilities repaired and ready in time for the commencement of the new academic school year, which starts on September 2, Williams said building contractors have been engaged under an emergency procurement process and will be scrutinised.

“We will be hiring independent quality surveyors to go out and take a look at the work to see if we receive value for money,” said Williams, who was speaking during yesterday’s third day of the 60th annual conference of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), which is taking place at the Ocean Coral Spring Hotel, in Trelawny, under the theme ‘Preserving the Legacy: Remaining Relevant for the Future’.

Williams admitted that due to the urgency of the situation, using emergency procurements to speed up the repairing of the schools was the best available option to ensure that the new school year begins as planned.

“You may not be in a very good bargaining position because you want to get the work done, but at the same time, we have to ensure that there is value for money, and that’s a way of protecting the integrity of the system,” said Williams.

Williams also noted that some of the schools that were damaged by Hurricane Beryl were previously in need of being upgraded. She said upgrading works will now take place alongside the repairs.

“Serious building infrastructure upgrade is still ahead of us, and Hurricane Beryl accelerated some of the work that needed to have been done decades ago,” said Williams. “Some roofs that used to leak will leak no more because they have been replaced because of the work that we did to rectify the hurricane damage.”

In looking at the overall repairs facing the Government because of hurricane damage, Williams said that in total, there are 1,009 public primary and secondary schools that require some level of repair.

“I am impatient to get the database to list each and every school, the work to be done, the expected schedule, the date for it to begin and end,” said Williams.

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