EDUCATION officials expressed hopes yesterday that Saipan Southern High School would be finished in time for the opening of classes in August now that the construction for the landscape of the $6 million federally funded project has begun.
Roman Benavente, the Board of Education member in charge of capital improvement projects, said the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. had already hooked up the water lines of the campus to heed the request of the contractor, Tano Group.
Tano earlier said they must be provided with water to finish the landscape of the newly built campus in Koblerville.
According to Tano, since the Public School System is the owner of the building it has the responsibility to provide water.
Benavente said Tano had begun shifting dirt and filtering rocks yesterday. He said the landscape is anticipated to be completed on or before July 5 when Tano’s contract with PSS expires.
“It’s good news for students. The project is moving along,” Benavente said.
A meeting was supposed to be held yesterday morning between Benavente, the CIP office, the Department of Public Works and Tano, but it was canceled. It will instead be held this afternoon.
Education Commissioner Rita H. Inos said she was not aware that Tano was requesting for a 90-day extension of its contract.
In any case, Inos said, the request will be reviewed.
“If there is such a request, what would normally happen is that I would have to review the request and take a look at the issues. But I haven’t seen anything in writing yet,” she said.
BOE Chairman Herman T. Guerrero expressed disappointment over Tano’s “excuses.”
He said the contractor of other new public schools on Saipan managed to build their projects on time despite their limited resources.
“We’re having too much problems with Tano Group and this has to be resolved because they keep on making excuses to finish the project. I’m tired of excuses. They said that they were going to finish that project, now they are asking for another extension,” Guerrero said.
He said Tano’s future transactions with PSS may be affected if it continues to allegedly cause problems with its projects.
PSS reportedly still owes Tano approximately $600,000. Benavente assured that the contractor would be paid commensurate to the work done.
“We haven’t paid them yet. We will still assess their work if there are any deficiencies,” Benavente said. About 700 incoming high school students are going to be transferred to the new school in August.
