| Summary: | President's Report Page 3 Board of Trustees November 1988 In other countries in the Middle East we have also begun to operate. Several programs are underway in Saudi Arabia, and we hope programs will start in Abu Dhabi and Qatar before the year is over. In December our first program in Cyprus will also take place - an English Teachers' training seminar. These programs are structured to pay their own way, but we are not seeking to make a profit on them. DORMITORY PROJECT With the Jameel Management Center almost complete - with a major dedication planned for the time of the Board meeting in Cairo - our principal construction concern has been with the dormitory project. Earlier this fall I sent you a detailed letter explaining the problems we had in reaching agreement on a contract and why we finally had shifted to an Italian firm (SCI), the second lowest bidder, from the lowest bidder (Sami Saad), an Egyptian concern. Since then we have had considerable difficulty with SCI, which clearly was not organized to get its work started on time and which raised a number of legalistic, and some practical, obstacles designed to give them a longer time without a penalty for exceeding the allowed 21 months. At one point we were so concerned that we were on the verge of issuing a default letter. More recently they have been working steadily, however, and while they are not in compliance with a number of details in the contract we sense a more workmanlike approach. Meanwhile the progress was bedevilled by neighborhood and regulatory problems. In August, to avoid the possibility of legal disputes over whether we owned the walls (as our records show), we reduced the perimeter of the building so that it would fit just inside the walls. Agreements were negotiated by the contractor with all the neighbors except one. She has filed suit to seek to stop the work until she can be assured we will not damage her trees or garden. Lawyers for us, the consultant, and the contractor regard this as a nuisance suit which we will be able to ...
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