St Rose’s High demolition… Successful contractor bids half of Govt. engineer’s estimate

Feb 09, 2018 News 1

This St. Rose’s High building will be demolished during the Easter holidays

Government has green-lighted a contract of almost $17M for the demolition of the St. Rose’s High building – almost half the price of what Government’s engineer has estimated the works to be.
Yesterday, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, during the post-Cabinet press briefing, disclosed that Cabinet this week had noted the award to PD Contracting.
The contractor will wait until the Easter holidays to start the demolition of the iconic wooden building located on Church Street. The contract is for $16,930,000.
According to Harmon, the displaced students will be accommodated in other buildings located in the same school compound, in the new term.
News that the engineer’s estimate was $30M had raised eyebrows, with prominent businessman Rizwan Khan saying that he could do it for half of that amount.
Creaking floors, broken windows, leaking ceilings and crooked stairways badly affected sections of the school, one of the top secondary institutions in Guyana.
Officials last December had said that nine classrooms that will be affected by the demolition will be provided for in the other buildings of the school. Most of the classes have already evacuated that section of the building. Students currently enter and exit the school through the St. Joseph Ursuline Convent gate, which is located on Camp Street, Georgetown.
It was explained that most of the classrooms are already crammed and so whatever space is available, will be made use of.
St. Rose’s High School has been in existence for over 150 years and currently has over 500 students.
Over the years, Government’s engineers have been preparing estimates for what they believe a project should cost – materials and labour included. However, collusion and material costs have in cases seen a wide disparity in the estimates and what contractors were bidding.
A number of Government engineers have been accused of accepting bribes and leaking the estimates.