There are doubts whether the new high school in Sir Lowry’s Pass will be operational for the 2024 academic year following a labour dispute threatening delays to the project.
The site has been closed for more than two weeks and scheduled for closure for builders’ recess from Thursday 15 December to Sunday 15 January 2023.
According to Jandré Bakker, spokesperson for the provincial Department of Transport and Public Works, officials and representatives of the provincial education department, has engaged with the relevant stakeholders from the community with the assistance of the main contractor, a professional team of consultants, the project steering committee and a social facilitator to mitigate the current community dissatisfaction. “To date, numerous workshops have been held in an attempt to resolve the situation with the community,” Bakker said.
“However, in the interim the site remains shut to mitigate the safety risk to workers caused by members of the local community who are threatening the health and safety of those on site. No work is able to proceed under the current conditions.
“At present, the current work stoppage remains in effect and a revised completion date can only by confirmed once the works are able to continue.”
Responding to some of the complaints by workers with regard to monies being owed, Bakker clarified that the department is in contract with the main contractor, but is not contractually engaged in how the main contractor pays workers.
Regarding allegations that there is no water on site and the contractor is obtaining water supply from a nearby household, which is apparently impacting water accounts, Bakker confirmed there is water on-site. “However, it has come to our attention that there was an instance where the main contractor implemented a contingency plan to obtain water from a neighbour during an outage,” he said. “The neighbour has been compensated.”
Bakker added that alleged threats and derogatory remarks made by the foreman to workers had been addressed in the dispute deliberations.
“The department has been informed that this matter has been dealt with by the contractor and a disciplinary process followed,” he said.
Comments from the department, which is managing the project on behalf of the edication department, did not appear in last week’s article because they could not be given in time before going to print (“School build at standstill”, DistrictMail & Helderberg Gazette, 30 November).
A request for comment sent to RC Civils for a second time this week was still not responded to.
