After four months of delays, Student Association members are considering trying to extricate themselves from an $11,000 contract with a Web site development company hired this summer to create President Audai Shakour’s Colonial Trader online portal.

The Web site developers said delays to the site were due to a late payment from the SA and a failure by SA members to work with the company.

Casey Pond, Shakour’s vice president of public affairs, said SwapSwop.com, the hired company, delivered an incomplete product on the negotiated launch date of Nov. 23. The Web site was originally scheduled to be launched by the first day of fall semester classes and was a main pillar of Shakour’s presidential campaign.

“We’re looking to see if this site is ready to fulfill the requirements that we are asking for,” said Pond, a sophomore. “We don’t feel it’s completely ready to launch now, and we’re deciding if this company will be able to fulfill those requirements.”

Pond said because an incomplete project was delivered, the SA is now considering alternative options for the site’s future.

“We’ll have to wait and see if they can fulfill the terms of the contract or if it would be best for us to get out of the contract,” Pond said.

The SA’s contract with SwapSwop.com outlines five features the Colonial Trader Web site should have: a textbook trading feature, two types of message boards for students, an apartment listing function and an SA news component. Pond said the Nov. 23 site only had one of the five features operational.

Pond said some SA executive members will be meeting with the University’s general counsel office to discuss whether terminating the contract is feasible and prudent. The University approved SA payments to the development company.

David Cole, SwapSwop.com’s chief financial officer, said the development delays stem from a late SA payment of $6,000 that was supposed to be given at the time of the contract signing. Cole said the payment was received 33 days late. He said broken lines of communication with the SA in recent weeks also contributed to the delay.

“We stressed to the SA that we would need the funding, and any such delay would impact the development timeframe negatively,” Cole said. “We were assured there would be no such delay (of the payment) once contract was signed.”

Cole said the contract was signed June 30, but a 33-day delay of the initial payment of $6,000, which was due at the signing of the contract, “precluded us from fully committing resources to the project.” The money for the site came from Shakour’s executive budget, which is funded through the SA student fee.

SwapSwop.com, which was founded by three GW graduates, indicated that difficulties in communication with SA officials led to further delays.

“We had made repeated attempts to meet with the SA office and did not receive a response,” Cole said. “We have left numerous voice and e-mails to the SA president seeking direction and guidance and have not received a return reply.”

Despite the criticisms of SA officials, Cole said the company hopes to complete the remaining features to the Web site next week.

Pond classified the payment delay as “a paperwork issue.”

“We don’t understand how a one-month delay of payments equates to a four-month delay of product,” Pond said.

Responding to criticisms that the SA has been unresponsive to feedback from the company, Pond dismissed the notion that Shakour was preoccupied by allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault that he has denied. No verdict has been announced on the allegations.

Freshman Benjamin Chait, a non-voting SA senator, has reviewed the contract and the Web site from SwapSwop.com and said he does not have faith that SwapSwop is capable of finishing the site.

“It’s safe for me to say this company will not produce something that will fulfill (the) needs of students at this campus,” Chait, who has some Web site design experience, said.

Junior Will Donovan, who resigned as SA chief administrative officer Nov. 8 for what he called failure of personal and professional leadership by the SA president, said the delays are Shakour’s fault for not ensuring the company was properly paid.

Cole said that while his company initially had strong communication ties with an unnamed SA member, the individual “was no longer available at a crucial time when we were ready for beta presentation and the remaining development.”

“The reason the Web site is late is because Audai did not push (the Student Activities Center) to get the funding for the site through in time,” Donovan said. “Audai had every opportunity to push the check through but did not.”

Donovan said that if the company had been paid when the contract was signed in June, the site would have been delivered sooner and any problems with Colonial Trader could have been fixed earlier.

Donovan said he felt it would be inappropriate to try to terminate the contract early.

“If we pull out now then (SwapSwop) doesn’t have to give us anything,” Donovan said. “If they stick with it then the company will have an opportunity to finish it for next semester.”

SA Sen. Ben Traverse (CCAS-U), a senior who ran against Shakour for SA president last year, said no one person is to blame and that the entire initiative was a failure.

“The Web site looks like crap,” Traverse said.

He added, “This is the fault of Audai for signing a substantial contract without investigating alternative options, and it’s the fault of the company for coming to us promising that they could do this.”

Pond said the members of the SA executive and some senators will be meeting with SwapSwop officials in the near future to determine a plan of how to proceed.