The new $70 million Berkeley Institute will be finished on time and to budget - despite delays caused by the September 11 attacks, the general contractor has vowed.

President and general manager of Pro-Active Management Systems Arthur Ebbin said although the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center created some difficulties in getting materials to the Island, the worst ‘hurdles' were over.

He said the school project was running to schedule and said mostly Bermudians were employed on the site, as had been the aim.

During a tour of the new school site on Thursday, Mr. Ebbin said progress was being made and within two weeks the process of erecting a steel frame would begin.

At the moment, work is still going on underground on the three water tanks, which are each at different stages of development.

However, part of the concrete wall at the back of the main building is being built, and many of the concrete footings to hold the steel in place have been installed.

Mr. Ebbin said: “We have agreed a schedule with Works and Engineering and we are running on time. We are doing the best we can. All the steel we need right now, for the first part, is here and we will probably begin putting it up in about two weeks.

“I can't really say whether we are at the stage we wanted to be at by now because there are a lot of targets we are trying to meet right now.

“There are specific things we want to meet by March or April, such as having the steel up on half of the building. The steel is scheduled to come on specific dates, so as long as everyone meets these dates, we should be fine.

“We are planning to be on time for next September. It depends on the cooperation from the Ministry.

“The foundations are done in areas that needed to be done first, and we have even done a couple of other areas that we didn't plan to do yet. It has given us an advantage.

“The upper level of the school is further ahead than we expected it to be, where two of the tanks are.”

Mr. Ebbin said there were 60 to 100 people working on the site at any given time, but as the project moved to the height of construction in about two months' time, that number should significantly increase.

No work has yet been started on the plant room, where the mechanics of the school will be housed, such as the air conditioning, and much work is needed, but he said work would start in that area soon.

He added: “The September 11 attacks did have some affect because the barriers were closed for two to three weeks and we could not get things through.It caused us some delays, but those hurdles are over now.”

But construction manager for the site Winters Burgess contradicted Mr. Ebbin slightly when he said they were “having to make up some time”.

He said: “It's beginning to go really well now - almost like we want it to go.

“We're having to make up some time, but a lot of the hurdles are over. There are always hurdles. We still have not got over all of them, but almost.”

Some sources in the construction industry, who did not wish to be named, claimed the Berkeley project was running behind schedule by about three to four months.

They said the steel should have been erected back in October or November - the contract having been given to Pro-Active in May of last year.

One senior source said: “They should definitely have moved on from the water tanks by now. The steel skeleton of the building should be well up by now. The project is a quarter of the way through and they are still in the ground - that is not good.”

And an industry source said there had been “more than rumblings” that workers on the site were unhappy.

He said: “I know a number of people from the site have applied for work with other contractors.”

But Mr. Ebbin said a lot of people were making comments when they did not know about the project or what was actually happening on the site.

He added: “This is a massive job and a lot of people don't understand. People say a lot of stuff, but they don't know what is going on.”

Site manager Julian Parker, who is from the US and was a major player in the building of CedarBridge Academy, said: “Things are going pretty good. We are running to schedule. The plan is to finish on time and within budget. We will probably finish on September 4, 2003.

“We are slightly ahead of plan, but that is nothing to brag about because it could rain for a few days and we could get behind.

“At this stage, things are good. We look good as far as labour is concerned, and we have found the quality of the labour to be pretty good.”

Controversy has surrounded the project after Government chose Pro-Active as the general contractor, despite the company being little known. Pro-Active had also submitted a bid for $5 million more than one of the other bidders, BermudaTech Construction. This led to accusations that Government had opted for Pro-Active purely because of its ties to the Progressive Labour Party.

Some secrecy then surrounded the organisation that had put the bond (insurance) up for the job, should it go wrong. That organisation was later revealed as being the Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU).

Further controversy followed when firms claimed they were being told by the BIU that the site had been designated “a union site” and in order to win contracts they had to pay union dues for their workers. That was deemed to be against Human Rights, and Government publicly stated that the development was not only for union workers.

Last week, Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott said, as far as he knew, the development was behind schedule by a month, give or take a week, but he said he believed the school would be open on time for the start of the September 2003 term.

He said Pro-Active had now committed themselves to working to the ministry's schedule and management programme, as opposed to their own,

He said: “As far as I know, we certainly are on budget. There have been no items that were not budgeted for.

“We may be four weeks, give or take a week, over our schedule. However, steel is on the site and we are about to come out of ground.

“By our (the Ministry's) progress and our estimation, we certainly would have liked to have steel go up and have been out of the ground by now, but we are almost at that point.”The explanation goes to September 11 because the shipping of the steel was put back some what.”

Mr. Scott said his ministry had a site meeting each week with Pro-Active, but as he had not been at work last week, he could only speak for the week ahead. However, he said he saw no reason why the job would not be finished on time.

And he said his objective of getting as many Bermudians as possible working and training on the site had come to fruition.

He added: “The site has the greatest percentage of Bermudians working on it to date over any major project such as this.

“If they were to bring in a management professional or a skill or talent for the steel, that would still mean that, from the employment point of view, Bermudians dominated the site.”

Last night Bermuda Air Conditioning, one of the sub-contractors on the site, said as far as they were concerned, the project was on schedule.

Project Manager Gary Hines said: “As far as I know, the schedule is going to be met. We are very optimistic.”