Once upon a time there was a major school project that was awarded to a relatively untried contractor with the aim of spreading work and opportunity around to businesses that normally were cut out of major projects.

The project was not without controversy, but ultimately it was finished on time (just) and slightly over budget. That project was CedarBridge Academy.

The then- Government did not have a great track record on public projects up until them. There had been problems with the Airport departure area, with Westgate and with Tynes Bay Incinerator. But CedarBridge was, to all intents and purposes, a success.

Somers Construction, the contract manager, did none of the building itself, instead in consultation with Works, contracting the work out to large and small builders, so that one company would do walls, another roofs, and so on. This technique proved to be successful, assuring competitive bidding and timely completion of work.

To be sure, the school was finished just in time - then-Premier Pamela Gordon put on her jeans and picked up a mop to help staff and volunteers put the finishing touches to the school the weekend before it opened - but it was finished.

Compare that to the growing disaster at Berkeley. The school is hopelessly delayed, subcontractors are not being paid and are pulling out and the major contractor's own staff never know if their pay cheques are going to bounce or not.

And finding out the truth about the job is comparable to pulling teeth. Obfuscation, denial and grudging admissions have been the order of the day, along with healthy doses of self-pity.

In awarding the contract to Pro-Active, the current Government had much the same idea as the previous one. It wanted to spread the wealth around and give the work to a black Bermudian firm, rather than a larger, white-owned one.

There was nothing wrong with that. Nor, in theory, was there anything wrong with having the contract specify that the successful bidder would train Bermudians on the job.

But it presupposed that the contractor would be able to manage the site successfully and it also presupposed there would be Bermudians available to train.

Pro-Active has manifestly proved itself unable to do a job of this scale. And call it bad timing, or call it blind stubbornness, but the idea of finding trainees in the middle of a construction boom when all contractors are desperate for labour was also asking for trouble. Anyone who wanted training could get it for the asking.

The decision to grant the contract to Pro-Active was, by the Ministry of Works' own admission, a political one and risky. Now the politicians should admit their error and let the professional civil servants whose advice was previously ignored get on with finding a replacement contractor who can complete the job efficiently before any more money and time is wasted.