For Immediate Release
7 September, 2021
NDP Education Critic, Jim Dinn, is calling into question why the Minister of Education did not get more involved when the tender for air purifiers was rejected by the province’s public procurement agency. In a recently published open letter, cced to the Minister of Education, Tom Osbourne and NLESD Director of Education and CEO, Tony Stack, the St. John’s Centre MHA outlined some of the issues raised by the tender.
“When multiple business owners contact our office to raise concerns about these and other irregularities in the tendering process, alarm bells ring,” Dinn stated. “All bid submissions were rejected by the government’s Public Procurement Agency, but government authorized a spend of millions of dollars. Something here is out of step.”
The Minister of Education has the power to intervene on capital asset purchases made by the school board. Not prioritizing school maintenance has caused infrastructure deficits that the province must find a way to resolve or ignore until it’s no longer the current government’s problem. This has been the pattern of previous Liberal and Conservative governments.
“The absence of a back to school plan once again shows that both the NLESD and the Department of Education are, at best, treading water and being reactive rather than implementing a well thought out plan that would make for healthier and safer schools,” Dinn said. “We deserve a thoughtful plan to address air quality and HVAC deficiencies in our schools and classrooms; this deficiency continues because of this government’s failure to produce a true, comprehensive, plan for schools.”
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For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca