The contract sum was $74 million with the ministry providing $50 million and the remaining $24 million to be provided by the board.

Alli said, "of course the board, optimistic as ever, had hoped that it would have been finished for September." Stabroek News had initially reported that the project should have been completed by mid-August in time for the 2001/2002 academic year. Owing to delays in procurement of materials, Alli said the completion of the project was consequently seen by the contractor as being likely by the end of 2001 or early 2002.

Alli said that after the designs were completed and construction started "only one request" was made by the board for a revisit to the design. This, he said, arose from the identification of a cluster of columns in and around the entrance to the auditorium area.

The board, he said, "felt it was not conceivable to have that arrangement when you have a large student body like 900 to negotiate their way into the auditorium." Therefore, he said, the board asked the consultants "if they could look at that for us." He said "they did and unfortunately it took four months for them to finalise a redesign." The four months impacted and "would have brought us down into April or May of this year for the completion." However, he said a second setback occurred when the consultants, Orin Hinds and Associates, withdrew from the project in February and new consultants VIKAB Engineering Company Limited were appointed in March. "So we ended up with a further two-month delay because the contractors needed a supervisory consultant to ensure that further works were carried on," he added.

Alli did not give reasons why the consultants resigned but Hinds told Stabroek News that he had done much of the work without being paid by the Board for his service. He said when "I had finished the designs I had to bill the Ministry of Education and the QC Board, based on the strange arrangements there were. The Ministry paid up but the Board has not. The building is nearing completion. I am owed a lot of money and all I get are excuses about incomplete work. I did a lot of work in good faith."

Asked about this, Alli did not say whether the board owed Hinds any money but said, "first of all, Mr Hinds was contracted by the Ministry of Education but there was a payment policy to be followed by the ministry and the board. At the time there were two issues - one was the work necessary for the redesign where a figure was presented and the board agreed to pay a certain amount and if additional amounts were claimed, the board of governors instructed that it goes to arbitration."

Alli added, "I don't know if there were any strange reasons but no full complete designs were presented until February/March 2002 after he resigned so that the board could not pay for a job that was not completed. In March 2002 he submitted the completed designs to the Ministry of Education and the board and we have those designs dated."

Hinds told Stabroek News that in every stage of construction he consulted with the board or construction would not have progressed as far as it did. "You submit drawings in phases for approval, so as to do checks and balances. Our job is to give what they want. Unless you put it in writing, it is also possible you may forget," Hinds said.

At present Hinds said that the board "owes me a lot of money. I am trying to get my money through the Ministry of Education but they are saying that the board will have to pay me. It is affecting me. I can't be working with clients who can't pay."

At present, Alli said, "we are happily in place with the contractor/consultant" ready to work on the project but QC has had examinations over the past six weeks and because of heavy continuous machinery being used it was not possible to carry on with the work. Work is now scheduled to recommence when examinations are through."

He added, "we are happy that progress so far has taken us to this striking building."

Thanking Orin Hinds and Associates for the work done, he said, "the design will give us what we expected of it..." The contractors, he said, have given the assurance that they would work additional shifts to ensure that the work is completed in time for the start of the new academic year.

Responding to an article in this newspaper and television broadcasts that in addition to redesigning the columns, the design presented by the consultants for seating accommodation was not what was requested by the school, Hinds said that "the drawing catered for 962 places on particular seating sizes in a two-tiered design. Apart from the 962 places there was a balcony which could accommodate far in excess of the required 1,000, if push comes to shove. The auditorium was designed with two levels."

Though members of some of the school's support groups told Stabroek News they had not seen copies of the design, Hinds said that they cannot blame him. He said that copies of the design were given to the board and to the Education Ministry. He said, "it was not in my interest not to produce and not to give it to anyone. This was early in the design stages." Asked whether the designs were in keeping with what the school had called for, he stated that it was basically what was requested of the architects and what was presented in the conceptual designs. Alli said that all the school's interest groups or the school's rehabilitation committee which comprised the staff, students, the Education Ministry, the Finance Ministry, the Queen's College Old Students Association, the Parent Teachers Association and the board participated in arriving at the conceptual designs.

And those designs were put together by old student and architect Royston Field-Ridley.

The architects, he said, were the professionals who were paid to take the designs and translate them into the working document and working designs.

Responding to the question of additional costs for the project with all the delays and redesign, Alli said, "we are basically anticipating that the supervision and design contract should still come within the cost which was originally provided because it is a percentage of the contractual work. We did ask for an additional half a million dollars to assist in the redesign which was carried out."

A substantial portion of QC was destroyed by fire several years ago.