Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says QVS and Saint John’s College have to be rebuilt because the work done by Indonesia and the US Navy did not meet our standards.

Sayed-Khaiyum says the government has learnt that next time anyone wants to adopt a school to rebuild, government must insist and only accept that assistance if it has complete control of the build where Fiji engages local consultants and construction companies adhering to local building codes.


Queen Victoria School

He stated this in parliament while answering SODELPA MP Ro Teimumu Kepa’s question on what the government will do differently after evidence of major defects in the post Cyclone Winston reconstruction of schools like QVS and Saint John’s College.

Sayed-Khaiyum says the Indonesian government had agreed to fully fund and rebuild QVS while the US Navy said that they would rebuild Saint John’s College.

He says there was absolutely no carriage of responsibility by government’s Construction Implementation Unit in respect of the rebuilds there.

Sayed-Khaiyum also says that the unit had recommended to Indonesia to engage local engineers and consultants but they did not do this.

The Attorney General says the damages took place at Saint John’s College again after the rebuild by the US Navy as the work was not up to standard.


St John's College

Australia had taken the responsibility to rebuild schools on Koro Island.

They are still building some schools and they have some issues with local contractors.

New Zealand has already completed the schools in Vanuabalavu.

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.

The government funded most of the schools on their own and the unit was completely responsible for the rebuild.

95% of the schools rebuilt did not have any previous architectural or engineering plans.

The rebuilt schools being supervised by the unit have now received cyclone certification and the schools can now get cyclone insurance.