The general contractor of the Berkeley site will have to increase its work rate by 100 percent if it is to meet its new estimated deadline of January 2004.

But Auditor General Larry Dennis said, if its current work rates were anything to go by, the new second senior school would not be ready until well into 2004, almost a year behind schedule.

He said by studying the amount of work carried out so far on the Berkeley Road site, along with payments made to Pro-Active Management Systems, it would be safe to say that the September, 2003, deadline would not be met.

Mr. Dennis said: "Pro-Active's (new) July, 2002, estimated completion day is late January, 2004. This is five months later than the completion date in the contract. To meet this date, Pro-Active will need to accelerate its work well beyond anything it has achieved so far.

"For example, monthly payments to Pro-Active to date have averaged $1.4 million, with only the July 2002 payment being more than $2 million.

"To meet its revised schedule, Pro-Active will need to average billings of $3 million a month through January 2004 - a 100 percent increase.

"In addition, Ministry staff inform me that past promises by Pro-Active to improve progress and increase resources on site have not been kept. Pro-Active has been unwilling to date to commit to working overtime.

"Yet to achieve its revised target completion date, Pro-Active will need to increase on-site resources, so that components that were originally planned to be worked on consecutively can be worked on concurrently."

Work on the construction of the $68 million school began in mid-June of last year, with a 27-month completion target.

But, by the end of August this year, Pro-Active had only been paid $20.25 million for work certified as completed.

Yet, Mr. Dennis reported that according to the original timetable, Pro-Active should have received $33.5 million by that date.

"Therefore, based solely on costs billed, only 60 percent of the planned work has been completed," said Mr. Dennis.

He said the Ministry had prepared charts depicting a payment schedule to Pro-Active, which also forecast a likely completion date for the project. It used planned expenditures and estimated that the project would not be finished until March 2004, as predicted earlier by The Royal Gazette.

However, he warned that the assumptions used in preparing these charts "may be optimistic".

He said: "If slippage continues at the rate experienced during the first 16 months of construction, final completion will be way beyond March, 2004."

The audit reveals that in July this year, Pro-Active produced an updated work schedule, which, at the date of the report, had not been accepted by the Ministry. Pro-Active estimated that the whole site would be completed by January 2004.

However, only a month after the Ministry received the new schedule from Pro-Active, the Ministry noted instances where work had already fallen behind the updated timetable.

Progress against updated July 2002 schedule:

qSteelwork projected to be finished by end of July, but was nearing completion by end of August;

Roofing to be finished by end of last July, but still not completed by end of August;

Exterior plastering to be finished by September 17, but only one area started by August and work not on-going; and

Structural steel of building C to go up in beginning of July, but only started at end of July. Building C is identified by Pro-Active as being on the critical path, meaning any delay will result in delays to the whole project.

Mr. Dennis said: "In my view, there are sound reasons to conclude that the January, 2004, completion target is optimistic, and that further delays are likely.

"In either event, the new school will be unavailable for use for a significant part of the 2003-4 school year.

"Planning for this contingency needs to begin immediately. Ministry staff have similar concerns."

He said a Ministry report stated that Pro-Active had failed to meet certain dates.

And the Ministry report went on to state that without major changes being made immediately, "the project will continue to drift in the same manner as it has been and the completion date will continue to be revised backwards".

As a result, Mr. Dennis recommended that Mr. Scott inform the Ministry of Education, at the earliest opportunity, of the likelihood that the new school would not be ready for much of the 2003-4 school year.