Contractors leave school jobs half-done

Lae News, Normal
Source:

The National – Tuesday, February 15, 2011

MANY contractors engaged in the maintainence and rehabilitation of school facilities, have left their jobs half-done.
Lae district administrator Robin Calistus said many small contractors were given jobs by the education division and the Lae city authority in good faith but the jobs were either incomplete or of poor quality.
Most schools were given funding assistance ranging from K20,000 to K150,000 for improvements on teachers’ houses, classrooms, libraries and ablution blocks and according to the district administrator, many were still incomplete.
Lae has 52 elementary, 20 primary, four secondary and four technical vocational training schools.
He said a new approach had been taken and that was to mobilise people in the communities to provide their carpentry and plumbing skills to build school projects so no extra money was spent on half-baked jobs.
Calistus gave the example of the Somsi community at Bumayong, who had completed a double classroom within three weeks to ensure their children began classes yesterday.