$2.1B spent to repair hinterland roads last year

Jan 12, 2022 News

Kaieteur News -During 2021, a number of roads in Regions One, Seven, Eight, Nine and 10 were rehabilitated and constructed by the government to a tune of $2,150,000,000, Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodar Indar said.

Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar.

He made the disclosure during a news conference on Monday.
The minister said some major works were done last year on these roads because some were either destroyed by heavy rainfall or by heavily loaded trucks.
In Region One, Minister Indar noted that roads were constructed with concrete, a move taken by the ministry to move away from laterite roads. “We are moving away in some of the communities from the laterite roads to concrete roads especially in the Mabaruma area, Kumaka to Kwebanna and so on. Although we have the laterite roads, we did maintenance of those. We are pushing kilometer of road every year to make sure that the entire stretch is concrete, so in Region One we have started the process there,” he explained.
Similar to that, laterite roads in Region Seven, mainly in the Kaburi area, Butakai and Puruni were also maintained because these were roads destroyed by severe flooding. “Rainfall continues to be a serious impediment as well as very heavy laden trucks that continue to use the road when there is down pouring and cause damage to the road that we have to be constantly repairing. So there is a lot of works that were done in region seven,” he added.
As it relates to Region Eight, Indar noted that works were done on the Denham Bridge and culverts around the area.
“We invest $100 million in the ground of communities within the North Paramakatoi areas for community engagement projects in a number of communities; Kopinang, Monkey Mountain area, Paramakatoi, Chiung Mouth and some other areas,” he mentioned.
Further, rehabilitation of roads was done in Region Nine, from Lethem to Aishalton, while upgrading of asphaltic roads were done between Lethem to St. Ignatius. Due to the flood which occurred earlier in the year, it would have destroyed the Annai to Lethem road where works had to be done. Roads works, according to the Minister, were executed from Karasabai to Yurong Paru also.
“In region 10, there is a number of roads we did in terms of the Mabura corridor. Again heavy laden trucks and rainfall continue to destroy these as we build. It’s continuous building but is has to be done,” the Minister related.
Other locations where road works were done in that region are Kwakwani, Rockstone, Muritaro and Malali. Lastly, Indar stated that a lot of rehabilitated works were done on the hinterland airstrips which too were destroyed by immense rain fall.

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