By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

MINISTRY of Education officials have denied allegations that the ministry is seeking to demolish portions of the former Bahamas Academy building on Wulff Road despite it reportedly being registered as an historic landmark. 

Nikki Bethel, chief media specialist in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST), said any “demolishing” and/or renovations at the Wulff Road property would have been conducted only after receiving the green light from senior officials in the South Bahamas Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists (SDA), the organisation with responsibility for the property.  

Consequently, Ms Bethel said that any work being conducted on the property should be viewed as a “restoration effort” as opposed to outright demolition, adding that since the school moved to its new Marshall Road location in 2011, the former property and the buildings have fallen gradually into disrepair from lack of use. 

Ms Bethel’s statements were in response to concerns raised by Margaret Guillaume, one of two sisters fighting for the preservation of the former school building, that the MOEST had started to demolish portions of the original building which, she said, is registered under the Bahamas Antiquities, Monuments and Museums Corporation (AMMC) and thus protected by law. 

The Tribune spoke to officials from AMMC to find out if the building is indeed registered, but was unable to get a response up to press time. 

Nonetheless, Ms Guillaume claimed that on December 9, she went to have a look at the building, only to be surprised that the “roofing on the porch had been removed” and the “stone railing on the right hand side had been demolished.”

When contacted, however, Ms Bethel said whatever work is being done on the property would have been sanctioned by top-tier officials in the South Bahamas Conference of SDAs.

“The Ministry of Education has spoken in great length and been in discussions with the Bahamas Conference of SDA churches and its leaders, and any decision that was made would have been in full agreements with the Adventist church,” Ms Bethel said. 

“The Ministry of Education did not act on its own, and rather than people assuming or viewing the decision as the demolition of an historical site, it should be regarded as the restoration of an historical site, as many young people will benefit from the academy that the MOEST will house in the former Bahamas Academy facility.”

Ms Bethel added that once renovations are complete, the Wulff Road property will host the MOEST’s Students Transitioning Achieving and Refocusing Enrichment (STAR) programme aimed at providing a quality learning environment for children deemed as “high risk students”.

She also said the MOEST plans to hold all of its Technical Cadet Corps Programmes (TCCP) at the property to better centralise the initiative.

Ms Bethel said the renovations will cost upwards of $2m.

“We would have negotiated with them as we would have done in the past with other schools that were no longer being utilised, as opposed to allowing the buildings to die, to revive the buildings,” she said. “As was the case of the old St Bede’s school, which became the Annie Thompson Pre-School, as was the case with the Our Lady’s School that became the Marjorie Davis Institute. 

“So when we weigh the cost of building a new school as opposed to renovating something and not allowing it to die, that was a more feasible option.” 

In June, Ms Guillaume, along with her sister Hadassah, condemned the proposed deal between the SDA church and the government to lease the former Bahamas Academy building and property. 

The sisters, who identified themselves as the great-granddaughters of the first SDA missionaries in the Bahamas, explained that the denomination condemned business partnerships with non-believers, and called for the building to be recognised as part of the congregation’s spiritual heritage. 

The sisters also insisted that such an agreement with the government would make it difficult to monitor the actions of individuals on the property, particularly concerning the adherence to the denomination’s religious teachings that prohibit the consumption and sale of “unclean foods” like pork or shellfish.