Kamla: Abandoned schools make Penal like war zone

WHILE at the opening ceremony of the Penal Fire Station on Tuesday, Siparia MP and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar said she could not help but feel saddened at the sight of two nearby schools she claims were abandoned by the Government.

She said she will ensure the work is completed when her party, the United National Congress (UNC), takes office after this year’s general elections.

She said she was told the Shiva Boys’ Hindu College and the Parvati Girls’ Hindu College were 80 to 90 per cent completed in 2015. But with the schools still incomplete five years later, she feels it is a sad situation.

“Can you see them? Oh, God. Look at them. You have to get a picture of that.

“It’s like a war zone. It’s like some abandoned place in some Middle East desert country.”

A few of her supporters gathered on the road opposite the new station. One supporter told Newsday she lives near the Shiva Boys’ School and that it floods whenever it rains.

Another supporter said, “They (the Government) did not do any work to complete the schools.”

The students have been relocated to the Debe High School and the Barrackpore Secondary School.

The Opposition Leader noted this was an issue even before the UNC was in office under her leadership.

“When the (Basdeo) Panday office was in government, these two schools were to be built. The (Patrick) Manning government came in, they stopped it.

“We started them, and I was told they are about 80 to 90 per cent complete in 2015. And we demitted, (now they are) totally abandoned.

“But they are not the only ones, a lot of schools have been abandoned in the country.”

Newsday contacted Education Minister Anthony Garcia for a comment. He said, “I have made comments over and over, on Friday. When we came into office, we met a lot of schools subject to incompletion.”

In fact he addressed the issue at the Parliament sitting on February 28. He said after he assumed office in September 2015, the Education Ministry met a “disorganised school construction programme” with 116 construction projects, and billions of dollars owed to contractors.

“On closer examination, we found that contracts for 46 of these projects were awarded during a six-month period, between March 2015 and September 2015, in an election year.

“The financial commitment of these 46 projects amounted to approximately $894 million. This was in addition to $2.1 billion in commitments to the incomplete projects initiated earlier than 2015.”

He also highlighted the “plummeting oil and gas prices” during that period, saying the ministry used its available resources to attempt to pay off contractors despite the challenge.

In 2018, Garcia had said there was rampant corruption and inflated costs associated with the two unfinished schools. He said work on both schools was suspended by the contractors because invoices had not been paid.

For Shiva Boys', $181,507,281 was the sum that was contracted and so far the Ministry of Education had paid $111,714,663 towards the construction.

And for Parvati Girls', the contracted sum was $141,128,105 and so far the contractor had been paid $85,000,272.