Presenting the proposal to Minister Timbo, the Management of Mercury International Company SL Ltd started by congratulating the Minister on his appointment and assured him of Mercury’s continuous commitment to support the government in the development of the Country through education.
Mercury’s support to education over the years has been very much conspicuous; ranging from providing scholarships for qualified Sierra Leoneans to pursue professional courses overseas to the payment of school fees for over one thousand Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and University students on annual bases.
According to Management, support to education is the right step to nation building, hence prioritizing educational support in the area of its corporate social responsibility through the Mercury International Charitable Foundation
“Mercury will fund the construction of 80 single classrooms in 4 phases of 20 classrooms each, starting this year; with the first phase to commence 1st October 2018 and ends in September 2019”, Management said.
Management further noted that the Ministry reserves the right for the specification, building permits and the allocation of lands for the construction of the classrooms in a justifiable manner as it deems fit and that the entire project is expected to cost about Le12 billion (USD 1,500,000).
The proposed MOU also provides that, the procurement process will be supervised by the Ministry with advance payment, regular valuation payment, and a final payment to be made by Mercury International directly into the respective contractor’s accounts within 30 days from receipt of valuation certificates from the Ministry.
Meanwhile, there should be an open bid for which, final decisions will be made by a joint committee from Mercury International and the Ministry of Education, taking due consideration of the recommendations of the procurement committee, but not necessarily bound by it.
Receiving the proposed contract, Minister of Primary and Secondary Education expressed his profound gratitude to Mercury International for such a laudable venture in complementing government’s effort to materialize the free and quality education in the Country.
“It is clear that there are infrastructural challenges with the implementation of the free education, but the 80 classrooms from Mercury will help greatly to accommodate close to 6000 pupils across the country”, Minister Timbo said.
The Minister also assured Mercury of the Ministry’s unwavering and unflinching commitment to ensure the successful implementation of the project and furthered that the process will be free and fair. He therefore said, the Ministry will ensure proper monitoring and evaluation of the project from start to finish.
He concluded by reproving other corporate houses to follow the exemplary footstep of Mercury as part of their corporate social responsibility to support the government on its developmental strides in the country.
