Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 05, 2014 News
China Railway First Group, the company at the centre of the controversy over a road project on the East Coast Demerara, has been awarded another contract on another controversial road namely, the Amaila Falls Access Road.
The revelation came yesterday, when Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, said that as a result of the shortcomings of the contractor, Dwarka Nauth, on section six of the road, the former company had to pull from a portion of that contract, which has since been awarded to China Rail.
Nauth had been awarded the contract to build section 6 (c) of the road while Ivor Allen was awarded the contract to build section 5 (a).
Dr. Luncheon said that the contractor could not deliver and as such pulled out. He added that China Rail had submitted bids for several of the lots and if the person who got the original contract, made a mess of it, then the government would automatically revert to the second bidder.
China Railway First Group, the company that had been identified for the construction of the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Plant, is currently undertaking works at section seven of the road.
The road project is being undertaken in a number of segments, with the Ministry of Public Works assuming responsibility for ‘Section Two.’
That section runs along the Mabura Road to the Essequibo River and has a contract price of $336,094,861.
Section Three was allocated to Toolsie Persaud Quarries Inc. for $373.3M. That section of the Amaila Falls road stretches from Butukari to the Kaburi Village bypass.
The same company has also been awarded a contract for Section Four of the road for $246M.
Section Four runs between the Kaburi/Omai junction to the Issano bypass.
Ivor Allen was awarded the $182.3M contract for Section Five of the road that runs from the Issano junction to Craig Road.
Section Six of the road was awarded to G. Bovell Construction Services for $281.7M, but that contract had to be terminated.
It was subsequently split into three lots and contracts granted for two lots, with the first from Issano Junction to Sorrow Hill being allocated to Ivor Allen for $145M.
The second lot of Section Six was awarded to Dwarka Nauth for $45M, but this has been terminated.
Hassan N Pasha General Building and Civil Contractor, was handed the last and reportedly the most difficult section of the road, ‘Section Seven’ with a contract price of $838M.
That contract was terminated in April 2012 after only 15 per cent of the work was completed.
Pasha received almost $315M.
The contract was subsequently handed to China Railway First Group (Guyana) Inc. for $1.7B (US$8.5M).
Works on the road project are currently at a standstill, since rain is pounding the interior location where the road is being built.
Of recent, contractors have been managing to get work done only on the few dry days that they would get.
Observers have noted that in future when Government and contractors ink contracts for roads in the interior, they must take into account the documented patterns of rain, given that they are expected to undertake works in a “rainforest.”
Work has been completely suspended at some sections while at others, workers utilize the dry days that are few and far between to complete the road that is desperately behind schedule.
As it relates to the troubled ‘section seven’ of the road, all of the laterite has been put in place but the Chinese contractors are yet to level and compact it.
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