Minister Parag Mandates Weekly Photo Updates for School Projects

Weekly progress reports with pictures required

-as Minister Parag expands oversight on school projects ||

Contractors in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) who have delayed infrastructural projects under the Ministry of Education will now be required to submit weekly status reports until their respective projects are completed.

This instruction came from Minister of Education, Honourable Sonia Parag, who, along with Minister Within the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Honourable Pauline Sukhai, led an inspection team to the region on Saturday.

“We want to keep track of the percentage of works and we also want to have visuals of what is happening on the ground,” Minister Parag asserted.

The team’s first visit was to the Three Mile Secondary School Dormitory, which is scheduled to be finished in December. With the project slightly behind schedule, Minister Parag has instructed the contractor to extend working hours and double their manpower to get the job done.

The contractor has agreed and committed to meeting the current deadline, despite significant challenges in getting sufficient construction materials into the community.

The Three Mile Dormitory was previously a single building that accommodated both male and female students. With this new project, the existing building is being renovated while a new one is being constructed for the girls.

The ministers also visited the Secondary School Dormitory in Bartica, a project that will feature three separate buildings.

One of these will be handed over on Wednesday. Overall, the project is approximately 70 percent complete and is slated for completion by the end of October.

Progress on a similar project in Karrau is also behind schedule, owing to difficulties in sourcing construction materials.

Nonetheless, both ministers emphasized the need for contractors to pull out all the stops to ensure that all projects are completed within the stipulated deadlines.

“We are dealing with children, so we have to work,” Minister Parag noted. She emphasized that these investments are critical to the government’s plan to expand hinterland education and ensure that every child has access to a sound secondary education, regardless of the region they are from.

Similar sentiments were echoed by Minister Sukhai, who reaffirmed that the government "would like to see that all the contracts we have awarded are completed in a timely manner.”

In the coming weeks, Minister Parag and her team, which includes Permanent Secretary Shannielle Hoosein-Outar and Chief Education Officer Saddam Hussain, will be visiting similar projects across the country.