Gov­ern­ment will go on the lo­cal mar­ket to raise $900 mil­lion to com­plete 27 schools across the coun­try.

The an­nounce­ment was made on Fri­day by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert at a joint press con­fer­ence which was at­tend­ed by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia and Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is at the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Port-of Spain, as they tried to bring the pop­u­la­tion up to speed with the sta­tus of in­com­plete schools, 27 of which they in­tend to wrap by next year.

Im­bert dis­missed re­ports that the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment had built, out­fit­ted and com­mis­sioned 106 schools dur­ing their tenure.

He said when the Peo­ple’ Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice in 2015 there were 118 in­com­plete schools they in­her­it­ed.

“Most of them are in a to­tal state of dis­ar­ray.”

To com­plete these schools, Im­bert said it would cost them $2.8 bil­lion.

The Gov­ern­ment, Im­bert said has since paid out over $700 mil­lion in school con­struc­tion “and we haven’t even scratched the sur­face.”

Last May, Robin­son-Reg­is said she held dis­cus­sions with Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny Ltd (EF­CL) and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry re­gard­ing the is­sue of out­stand­ing pay­ments owed to 30 con­trac­tors.

EF­CL was as­signed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the pro­cure­ment of de­signs, con­struc­tion and man­age­ment of projects un­der the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry.

In tal­ly­ing the fig­ure, Robin­son-Reg­is said the sum­ma­ry of debt to con­trac­tors’ claim was $918 mil­lion, while claims by con­sul­tants amount­ed to $90 mil­lion.

“In some in­stances, we did not see con­tracts but they (con­trac­tors) brought ac­tion against EF­CL be­cause they claimed monies were owed.”

She said one cred­i­tor pe­ti­tioned the court to have EF­CL’s bank ac­count frozen.

De­spite this, Robin­son-Reg­is said they were able to ver­i­fy and pay $65 mil­lion owed to con­trac­tors.

In go­ing for­ward, she said the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing to have 27 pri­or­i­ty schools com­plet­ed.

The schools com­prise four ECC cen­tres, 13 pri­ma­ry and ten sec­ondary.

The EF­CL, Robin­son-Reg­is said still owe con­trac­tors $561 mil­lion to com­plete the 27 schools some of which have been van­dalised.

Among the new schools to be con­struct­ed are To­co Sec­ondary which would cost tax­pay­ers $200 mil­lion while the St Phillip Gov­ern­ment is tagged at $36 mil­lion.

Par­ents of stu­dents of Ra­mai Trace SDMS Pri­ma­ry School who have been protest­ing re­li­gious­ly will have their school com­plet­ed in eight months’ time at a cost of $36 mil­lion.

Im­bert said the Fi­nance Min­istry has raised a $400 mil­lion bond on the lo­cal mar­ket to make pay­ments to cred­i­tors and lit­i­gants against EF­CL.

Of this fig­ure, $300 mil­lion has al­ready been paid out.

“To com­plete the 27 schools is $917 mil­lion. We will be go­ing to the mar­ket to raise that fi­nanc­ing as well. We have no choice. But we just can’t leave the projects there.

“So hav­ing al­ready raised $400 mil­lion to deal with old debts we will be go­ing for­ward to raise an­oth­er $900 mil­lion on the lo­cal mar­ket to com­plete these 27 schools.”

Im­bert said they would raise the mon­ey via a bond is­sued by First Cit­i­zens Bank with fa­cil­i­ta­tion by oth­er banks.

“What we have been sad­dled with is the sce­nario where we are du­ty bound to com­plete the schools al­ready start­ed which is go­ing to cost $3 bil­lion. It has stymied the PNM’s con­struc­tion pro­gramme, hav­ing to be sad­dled with a $3 bil­lion bill with 100 in­com­plete projects.”

Im­bert said it was im­pos­si­ble to com­plete all 100 schools which would have to be done on a phased ba­sis.