Opposition MP Erwin Adderley last night estimated that the new second senior school would be a year behind schedule and up to $50 million over budget as the completion deadline fast approached.

He said Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott was now attempting to bring in a new management company in a bid to escalate the work, but said with only four months to go, the action was too little, too late.

He said far from having the school ready for students by September, the building would not even be sealed and closed in by then. He said: “The truth of the matter is that this project will be late and will end up costing the taxpayer up to a whopping $50 million more than it was supposed to.

“In total, you the taxpayer, will pay out of your pocket $100 million, possibly as much as $120 million, for this project. This is an indictment of Minister's Scott's leadership and an indictment of his failure to act quickly and decisively once problems arose.”

Mr. Adderley said he arrived at the figures by estimating that if the $68 million project, which was supposed to be completed in 27 months, was a year behind schedule, it would add at least an additional 50 percent on to the cost of the development. But, he said, added to that was the additional cost that the new proposed management consultants would charge.

Mr. Adderley said: “Who is going to pay for the management consultants? That was not built into the contract. That and the delay is going to significantly push the overall price up.”

Mr. Scott said last night that he held meetings yesterday with general contractor Pro-Active Management Systems Ltd and management firm the HR Lubben Group to discuss the possibility of them coming in purely as advisors to Government on the project.

He said Pro-Active would stay in control of the management of the project, but the Lubben Group would work with Government on how best to escalate the flagging project. But he said arranging their involvement in the development would take some co-ordination and that was what his Ministry was now working on.

However, Mr. Scott said he was still working to the deadline on Pro-Active's contract, which was September 4 this year, and he would stick to it until a new, mutual deadline had been agreed between the three different parties. And he said that would not be decided until the Lubben Group were officially on board.

Although, the Minister did admit that the cost of the project could increase, but said it would be impossible to know by how much, and he claimed Mr. Adderley's estimates were “pie in the sky figures”.

In response to Mr. Adderley's claims, the Minister said: “This is just another one of his speculations. Adderley does not need facts, all he needs is a fertile imagination.

“The project is definitely going slower than I would like, but I think that is what we are working on. “I think we will be reviewing the budget as we review the contract date. If that (date) changes, we could see a change in the budget for the project, but I don't have any hard figures. We are still below budget now. It does not mean there will be a dramatic increase.”

Asked whether the Ministry should have stepped in sooner, Mr. Scott said he did not understand what Mr. Adderley was getting at. And when The Royal Gazette suggested that Mr. Scott had been saying for a year that he was looking to escalate the project, without little evidence of it happening, he said that was not the case.

He added: “I have never told you that we have abandoned the idea of escalation. We are seeking to bring in a management group and I think that would possibly be a signal to a change in pace and rate.

“I think there is much that we have done since then (in the last year). We have accomplished much, contrary to the pundits. We have escalated aspects of it and we have corrected course in many ways. Remember, this is a project that had all sorts of challenges, but those have gone away. When you see a roof off, it does not mean the project is necessarily moving late. It's part of the build up.

But Mr. Adderley said members of the construction industry were laughing at the Minister.

“I had the pleasure of touring the Berkeley site recently and things are not going well at all,” he said. “Workers complain of not being provided with the tools they need to do their job.

“When you look at the activity being carried out on site, there is no sense of urgency, no sense of determination to get this job completed as quickly as humanly possible. Minister Scott, the clock is ticking. That building won't even be sealed and closed within four months.

“We are looking at rain going into the building because there are windows missing and there is no roof. You have to forget about when you can put furniture in there. When are you going to get realistic?”