The plug was officially pulled yesterday on troubled general contractor BermudaTech Construction - leaving Government to pick up the pieces of the Spice Valley Middle School project.

Despite efforts from all sides to seek extra financial backing to save the business, the receiver notified the three directors yesterday morning that they would be unable to honour their contractual obligations.

As a result, Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott said last night that his department would oversee the completion of the Spice Valley project using the sub-contractors already in place. The company, which has just completed the Bermuda Commercial Bank Building on Victoria Road, and was in the process of massively revamping the middle school, ceased trading on Monday of last week after one of the directors revealed the firm was having serious cash-flow problems.

Lawyer for the Bank of N.T. Butterfield, Justin Williams, advised the bank soon after to appoint a receiver to take care of BermudaTech's business affairs. Last Thursday, receiver David Goodwin was appointed to supervise and control the wind down of the company's assets. And yesterday, after lengthy discussions also involving the Ministry's architects and the architects for the Spice Valley site, OBM, it was decided that BermudaTech could not continue.

Yesterday, directors for the company Terry Griffiths and Maurine Caines could not be located, while lawyers for director Jonathan Baxter said he did not wish to comment.

The Royal Gazette reported on Tuesday a writ had been filed by the receiver on behalf of BermudaTech against Mr. Baxter. However, the newspaper understands that the writ was filed purely to secure documentation, which was immediately forthcoming. It is believed, therefore, that the action will go no further.

Last night, Minister Mr. Scott said he regretted the outcome of BermudaTech, but said he would ensure that work got underway again on the Spice Valley site next week. And it is understood that the BermudaTech directors have offered to work with the ministry to assist in any way they can in completing the project on time. Mr. Scott said: "Today (Thursday), I was informed that it did not look likely that BermudaTech was going to be in a position to go forward, so I have asked them to confirm that in writing as soon as possible.

"But, we have enough (information) now to know that we will proceed ourselves, and we will do as we have suggested in recent days - we will use the sub-contractors.

"Recommendations were made by BermudaTech, as options that they thought might be helpful, but I think we will say `thanks, but no thanks'.

"They were recommending that we might use some of the larger general contractors to take their place, but they might also come with a large price."

Mr. Scott said he was planning to take one of his trainee site managers off the new Berkeley secondary school site and put him in charge of the Spice Valley project. And he said if the sub-contractors on site need assistance with complimentary services, then the Ministry would provide them.

He said when BermudaTech first ran into problems last week, his Ministry took an inventory of equipment and materials on the site, as well as details of work carried out to date, along with photographs and video footage.

He added: "I would think that we will be picking up there early next week. It's just whenever the sub-contractors can get back on site and start literally cranking it up again. We were even interviewing, telephoning and discussing matters them today, so we can literally hit the schoolyard running."