Damage Report Highly Regretted: US Embassy
The damage report of Saint John’s College in Cawaci, Ovalau, is highly regretted, says US Embassy Regional Public Affairs Officer Dmitri Tarakhovsky.
Mr Tarakhovsky’s comments yesterday were in response to a comment made by the Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz SayedKhaiyum in Parliament on Monday. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said: “Saint John’s College rebuild was done by the United States Navy. There were couple of schools built through international effort, for example the Indonesians in Queen Victoria School (QVS), but those built by Government have been built to standard.” However, Mr Tarakhovsky said, they were proud of the efforts of their military and the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, to rebuild the Saint John’s College in Cawaci after Cyclone Winston.
“We are sorry to hear reports that the school was damaged again,” he said. “We will look closely at the Government of Fiji’s assessment of damage from Cyclone Keni and any requests for assistance,” he said.
Meanwhile, last week while speaking to the Fiji Sun, College principal Alosio Saukuru said two-thirds of the classroom block’s rooftop was blown off last Tuesday afternoon.
The damaged block housed three Year 12 classrooms, two Year Nine classrooms, one Year 10 classroom and three staff rooms. “The cost of repair could be more than $20,000 and we are waiting for Government to assess the damage,” principal Saukuru said.
“This is the same classroom block that was damaged by Tropical Cyclone Winston and repaired.”
The same block was repaired by the United States military.
Other classroom blocks not affected by Tropical Cyclone Keni were repaired by engineers of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces.