The Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum

The Attorney General has revealed the repair work done at two schools affected by TC Winston in 2016 had major defects.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says works carried out at the Queen Victoria School in Tailevu and St Johns College in Cawaci failed.

The Indonesian government was responsible for the work at QVS while the US Navy helped rebuild St. Johns College.

The Minister says the construction work carried out did not meet the local standards.

“Following the construction work by Indonesia, it was discovered that the construction was not up to the standard and did not meet the local standards. Later they discovered the problem was a lot bigger and the reality is that we need to rebuild.”

The Indonesian government had agreed to fully fund and rebuild QVS after the devastation caused by the Category 5 cyclone.

However, Sayed-Khaiyum says the Indonesian government did not take heed of Fiji’s Construction Implementation Unit’s recommendation.

“The QVS specifically, the Indonesian government dealt with the Ministry for foreign affairs. After they had done the plans, the CIU recommended to them to engage local consultants for the supervision side of the process. However, that suggestion was not considered.”

The government’s Construction Implementation Unit was initially given 166 schools to be rebuilt.
Of this, 143 have been completed and the remaining schools are expected to be completed by July this year.