Renovation work to Spice Valley Middle School will be completed on time, despite general contractor BermudaTech going bust, Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott vowed last night.

He said work should have resumed at the school by Monday, and promised that his department would pull out all the stops to ensure the August deadline was met.

Mr. Scott said last night that he was taking legal advice about the apparent collapse of BermudaTech, which had been on site at Spice Valley for some time carrying out a number of phased refurbishments.

And he said if he discovered that Government had paid the contractor for work and materials not actually provided, he would take steps to seize remaining assets.

But he said the priority at the moment had to be the completion of the middle school, which has faced delayed-openings at the start of terms and continuous disturbance for a number of years now.

Mr. Scott said he found out on Tuesday that BermudaTech had ran into difficulties when one of the four partners, Terry Griffiths, contacted the Ministry.

He said Mr. Griffiths, who was in charge of the Spice Valley site, had voiced grave concerns after one of his fellow directors had disappeared, and the other two had resigned their positions with the company.

Mr. Scott praised Mr. Griffiths for his "courage" in approaching the Ministry and said the director appeared to be devastated by the collapse, and as shocked as Government.

Mr. Scott said: "It was the wish of Mr. Griffiths that BermudaTech be allowed to finish the project.

"After taking legal advice from the Attorney General's Chambers, it was deemed appropriate for us to require in writing confirmation of BermudaTech's status. We need to know if it can carry on or whether it is reviewing its corporate status. I don't know if we have received that yet.

Mr. Scott added: "But we can set about the completion of Spice Valley in two ways."

He said if the Ministry was provided with assurances that BermudaTech, or Mr. Griffiths, can complete the work, and that they can satisfy Government that they have the manpower, finances and materials to continue, they may be allowed to do just that.

Or he said, alternatively, his department may seek to keep all the subcontractors already in place, and simply manage the project itself.

But he said, either way, the work would be finished on time.

He added: "If we are not going to have the services of BermudaTech, then we will step in. We will have to take stock of our resources, both staff and financial.

"But we will make every effort to ensure that the school is finished by August. I will undertake to put all of our energy into it.

"The work was a little behind schedule, but nothing dramatic. However, now every day it will fall a little further in arrears, so therefore we have to make a decision very quickly."

And he said he hoped the Ministry had not paid more money to BermudaTech than has been warranted for the work so far.

He added: "We have to take legal advice on the actual status of both BermudaTech and its financial position, as seen by Government. In other words, have we paid more than they have achieved and, if so, consideration may be given to a lockdown of the site and a freezing of assets."

But Mr. Scott said the "only comfort" he could take from the collapse of the general contractor was that the company was not awarded the $70 million Berkeley Institute contract last year.

Mr. Scott faced much criticism last year after Pro-Active Management Systems Ltd was awarded the contract, despite putting in a bid $5 million more than BermudaTech.

It was claimed at the time BermudaTech had more experience and knowledge of such big projects, and that Pro-Active was little-known.

Opposition claimed Pro-Active was given the contract because of its ties to the Progressive Labour Party.

But yesterday, Mr. Scott said he believed that the latest developments proved that Government was right.

He added: "I guess the only comfort is that we took the decision that we did with the new senior secondary school to award the contract to someone else.

"This means the company was in a serious position, even then. You don't go after a job, if you don't have it."

And he said the fact that the company was having financial difficulties probably led to the directors being so keen to win the project.

He added: "One could argue that if they were having financial difficulties, there may have been attempts to make up the price and undercut others.

"As I said at the time, their price could have gone from $5 million under (the budgeted price) to $10 or $15 million over.

"The right decision was made by Government because it could have been a different situation. It should be very clear that a company that was not in trouble before Berkeley would not now be in trouble just because they did not get the contract."

All attempts to get in touch with any of the four directors of BermudaTech during the last two days have failed.

The directors were Terry Griffiths, Maurice Caines, Jonathan Baxter, and David Sinclair.