Officials of ProActive Management Systems are holding off for now on public comments in the wake of the termination of their contract to build the new senior secondary school at Berkeley, but it is understood that the company will be making a statement by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, company officials are keen to ensure a smooth transition to the new contractor before laying out their case against Government for compensation and settlement of outstanding issues.

The troubled contract came to an end this week with Government?s announcement that the contract has been terminated.

ProActive is gearing up to pursue the claims in arbitration which could amount to millions of dollars, and is keen to repair damage done to its public image throughout the duration of the project.

Government is also holding off on explaining the details of the development, but sources close to ProActive report that the company had become frustrated with problems receiving monies owed them by Government.

Amounts billed were constantly disputed by civil servants overseeing the contract, and the Bermuda Industrial Union, which provided a completion bond for the project, frequently made up the difference between what the Government agreed to pay out and the company?s claims.

Government had already acknowledged that its own administrative delays, design changes and work order changes had contributed to significant delays in bringing the project to completion.

In February it announced that it had agreed to extend the deadline by one year and pay ProActive an extra $13 million over the $68 million original contract price. Other unresolved issues were to be settled through arbitration. understands that the company continued to experience problems receiving monies claimed following the February agreement and that only a portion of the $13 million was paid out.

And matters came down to the wire when ProActive itself brought up the question of termination by telling Government that it should either pay up or make a decision to terminate the contract, but warned that there would be consequences.

Days later Works Minister Ashfield DeVent terminated the contract.

Yesterday Premier Alex Scott was reluctant to comment saying that Mr. DeVent was due to make a statement.

But he said he fully supported the Works Minister?s decision and said that the public should be reminded that the value of the contract was originally $68 million, had been boosted by $13 million but was not up to $100 million as the Opposition party has been claiming.