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Kagman school contractor vows to expedite project
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Posted on Jul 14 1999
Pac United Corp., the contractor for the Public School System’s new CIP project, promised yesterday to expedite the construction of Kagman Elementary School.
Deng Junhua, president of Pac United, said his company has started addressing the concerns of PSS and the Department of Public Works, specifically the quality of construction materials.
“We admit that the project is facing delay, but this is because of so many factors that we should have considered when we started working on the project,” Deng said.
PSS earlier warned to terminate Pac United Corp.’s contract if it doesn’t improve its pace and performance.
Deng said Pac United has done several private construction projects in the CNMI, but the Kagman project is its first government contract.
“There are things that we are not yet familiar with. We need a little time,” Deng said.
One of the earlier problems Pac United had to deal with was the labor situation, Deng said.
“We thought we could hire our own workers from China but that’s not what happened,” Deng said.
The $6 million project was set for completion by October, but PSS said the rate of progress of the contractor’s work indicates that the school would not be completed until April.
PSS noted that the project “is now 10 weeks behind schedule.”
Deng said the delay is caused by “many factors” which he did not want to discuss in public.
“We want to discuss these things with public works and PSS officials. We hope to get their support. We know that we will eventually conquer all our difficulties,” Deng said.
PSS official has suspended the contractor’s precast works allegedly because of the inferior quality of materials being used and the bad alignment of structures being installed.
“We are committed to make things better,” Deng said.
He said his company will more workers, more engineers to supervisors to monitor the construction works.
Pac United, Deng added, has also instructed its subcontractors to perform quality-check tests on construction materials.
The Kagman school, PSS’ major capital infrastructure project, is 80 percent funded by the federal government through the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA). The remaining 20 percent of the project cost comes from the local matching fund.
