KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Near­ly $677 mil­lion has been spent on in­com­plete school projects across T&T, with sev­er­al sites aban­doned, over­grown and, in one case, non-ex­is­tent, ac­cord­ing to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s 2025 re­port.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al has rec­om­mend­ed that fund­ing be pri­ori­tised to com­plete stalled projects and that mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems be strength­ened to pre­vent fur­ther de­lays, warn­ing that with­out ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion, pub­lic funds will con­tin­ue to be tied up in un­fin­ished in­fra­struc­ture while schools and com­mu­ni­ties are left with­out ba­sic fa­cil­i­ties.

The find­ings in Chap­ter Four of the re­port paint a trou­bling pic­ture of stalled in­fra­struc­ture, weak over­sight and poor project ex­e­cu­tion with­in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s school con­struc­tion pro­gramme. A list of five stalled projects alone ac­counts for $116 mil­lion in ex­pen­di­ture, yet all re­main in­com­plete, with progress as low as 11 per cent.

At the Iere Vil­lage Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre, just 13 per cent of works were com­plet­ed de­spite more than $3.1 mil­lion al­ready paid. Au­di­tors found the foun­da­tion over­grown and un­se­cured, with no ac­tion tak­en af­ter a for­mal no­tice was is­sued to the con­trac­tor. The con­trac­tor’s bonds have since ex­pired, with ter­mi­na­tion rec­om­mend­ed by a con­sul­tant.

A sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion ex­ists at the Pi­paro Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, where $5.5 mil­lion was spent for just 12 per cent com­ple­tion. The site was al­so found over­run with veg­e­ta­tion, with on­ly ba­sic foun­da­tion works com­plet­ed.

The most sig­nif­i­cant project flagged was the new Par­vati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege in Pe­nal, where over $103 mil­lion has been spent, and works reached 72 per cent com­ple­tion be­fore be­ing halt­ed. The project has been sus­pend­ed since Au­gust 2015.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion at­trib­uted the de­lays to late pay­ments to the con­trac­tor, which led to re­peat­ed work stop­pages. The re­port not­ed that more than $13.8 mil­lion is still owed, along­side an on­go­ing breach of con­tract mat­ter.

At the Up­per Pe­nal Rock Road Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre, au­di­tors re­port­ed that no iden­ti­fi­able struc­ture ex­ists, de­spite $2.27 mil­lion be­ing paid. The min­istry said com­po­nents were fab­ri­cat­ed off-site.

Mean­while, the Mara­cas Bay EC­CE Cen­tre, with just 11 per cent com­ple­tion, re­mains stalled but is ex­pect­ed to re­sume in the 2025/2026 fis­cal year pend­ing fund­ing. The min­istry said de­signs have been re­vised and ap­proved.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al not­ed a re­cur­ring pat­tern across projects: un­se­cured sites, heavy over­growth, poor con­trac­tor per­for­mance and weak fol­low-up af­ter cor­rec­tive no­tices were is­sued.

The re­port al­so high­light­ed is­sues un­der the School Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme. At Cou­va East Sec­ondary School, au­di­tors ob­served de­te­ri­o­rat­ing in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing bro­ken gut­ters and rot­ting win­dow frames, even as the school re­mains in use. The min­istry said re­pairs are sched­uled for the Ju­ly/Au­gust 2025 va­ca­tion pe­ri­od at a cost of $400,000.

At Holy Name Con­vent in Point Fortin, au­di­tors found no ev­i­dence of a re­cent­ly con­struct­ed an­nex, de­spite pay­ments ex­ceed­ing $3.3 mil­lion. The min­istry re­spond­ed that a pre­fab­ri­cat­ed struc­ture had been in­stalled in­stead.

In light of the find­ings, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al called for a com­plete over­haul of project plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion, in­clud­ing pri­ori­tis­ing projects based on com­mu­ni­ty needs and ad­dress­ing the grow­ing back­log be­fore start­ing new works.

Guardian Me­dia sought com­ments from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, the Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and is await­ing re­spons­es.