With their hands clasped and on bend­ed knees, stu­dents of a pri­ma­ry school named af­ter an Op­po­si­tion MP yes­ter­day urged Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to open their new school say­ing they were falling sick in their make-shift class­rooms.

Even though pass­ing mo­torists honked their horns to pass and pro­test­ers blew whis­tles, the pupils of Dr Roodal Mooni­lal Ra­mai Trace Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) Pri­ma­ry School re­mained on the cen­tre of the road for over ten min­utes be­fore they walked to see their new school cov­ered with vines and de­bris.

Pres­i­dent of the PTA, In­dar Jairaj, said the pupils have been housed in the cramped Hanu­man Hin­du Mandir at Good­man Trace, Rock Road, Pe­nal, since March 2015 as works on their new $32 mil­lion school took place.

When the new Gov­ern­ment took of­fice, the con­trac­tor stopped works, Singh said.

"It's more than a year now and our chil­dren are suf­fer­ing. They are stay­ing in a 20 by 60 tem­ple all the way in Rock Road. Our chil­dren are veg­e­tar­i­ans for the past 15 months. They can­not car­ry not even an egg sand­wich to school," Jairaj said.

Say­ing ten pupils fell ill in­side the tem­ple, Jairaj begged for an end to the chil­dren's suf­fer­ing.

"We don't want high­way or rail­way, mon­ey or jew­els. If you can open half of the school we will be hap­py," Jairaj said.

Sharon Moses, whose three chil­dren – Shawn, Shakeil, and Shaneille – fell ill said the tem­ple did not have prop­er toi­lets.

"Every day the smell of urine is very high," she added.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Oropouche East MP Mooni­lal said he raised the mat­ter in Par­lia­ment and was told that con­struc­tion on the school was stopped be­cause of lim­it­ed re­sources. He said the school was 85 per cent com­plete and called on Gov­ern­ment to find re­sources to com­plete it.

In re­sponse, Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Dr Lovell Fran­cis, said he would try to al­le­vi­ate the stu­dents' con­cerns.

Say­ing the Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny Ltd, whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was to build and re­pair schools, had al­ready start­ed pay­ing con­trac­tors with clean in­voic­es. Fran­cis not­ed that the bill owed to con­trac­tors was over $800 mil­lion which rep­re­sent­ed more than the min­istry's Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP) al­lo­ca­tion.

"It is a mas­sive sum so it is im­pos­si­ble to pay $800 mil­lion plus owed to con­trac­tors. You un­der­stand the dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion we are in be­cause we have to re­pair the schools that are not re­paired, try to pay con­trac­tors and still have to find mon­ey to start the new projects," Fran­cis said.

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA