Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter

OCHO RIOS, St. Ann:

The Ministry of Education and Youth yesterday admitted that the poor quality of work done on schools by some contractors could have resulted in them being badly damaged by Hurricane Dean, which lashed the island on August 19.

Preliminary estimates conducted by the ministry have put the damage to schools, from the hurricane, at roughly $700 million.

Speaking yesterday during the Jamaica Teachers' Association's (JTA) 43rd annual conference, Ray Howell, principal of Edith Dalton James High School in St. Andrew, said the office of a principal of a primary school in St. Catherine was blown off and further checks revealed that the roof was poorly constructed.

Lauriston Wilson, director of project management and technical services in the Ministry of Education and Youth, sought to explain why this could have happened.

Rush after ivan

"Immediately after (Hurricane) Ivan (in 2004) there was a rush to get back as many schools into condition as quickly as possible (and) there was a plethora of contractors who I have never heard of but were registered with the National Contracts Commission," Mr. Wilson told the three day-conference which ended yesterday.

He continued: "We have since blacklisted a number of them - they will never work for us again because their performance was so bad."

Mr. Wilson told delegates at the Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort and Spa that the ministry has since hired some more project managers and is ensuring that, this time around, the work will be properly done.

"(So) you may not get your repair as quickly as you expect but we are going to ensure that what is done this time can withstand the next 'Dean' or 'Ivan' that comes along," he said.

Mr. Howell also told the conference that some 100 pieces of furniture, which were delivered to his school, were of substandard quality, noting that the ministry was wasting millions of dollars and the work was not being done properly.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson said Cabinet has given approval for the procurement guidelines to be bypassed in order for schools damaged by the hurricane to be repaired.

"We have been to the Cabinet and we have gotten what we call emergency procurement procedures," Mrs. Henry-Wilson said.

She said schools will be given permission to engage their own contractors to carry out repairs which cost less than $1 million, and approval is to be given to secondary schools for contracts up to $4 million. Any major repairs above $4 million will go through the emergency procurement procedure.

petrina.francis@gleanerjm.com