Enterprise $32M road work…Residents say contractor seeking to fleece Works Ministry

Mar 10, 2013 News

…he will have to follow road design–Robeson Benn

By Dale Andrews

While they welcome the current roads work in their community, residents of Enterprise, East Coast Demerara, are insisting that they are not getting value for the $32M that government is expending on the project.
The bone of contention is the one-mile main access road that leads into the community. Residents believe that the project is just another way for corrupt contractors and officials to pocket off taxpayers money.
For more than five years, the residents have been clamouring for repairs to be done to the road which was filled with what can be described as craters, causing severe hardships to motorists.

These craters reflected the state of the Enterprise Main Road before the current road works commenced.

The contract for the road was awarded last November following several complaints raised by residents.
Residents were happy when work finally started last Friday and vowed to keep their end of the bargain by scrutinizing the work being done by the contractor; after all it was only six years ago that the road was resurfaced following the 2005 floods that inundated East Coast Demerara.
Materials such as sand and loam were trucked into the area and there was the feeling that this time around, a proper road would be built.
“We been punishing fuh dis road since 2005. After de floods, a contractor just come and do a slapdash work with sand and tar and that was it,” a resident told Kaieteur News.
Apart from civilian vehicular traffic, the road accommodates heavy duty traffic belonging to the Guyana Sugar Corporation, along with excavators on low bed trucks.
But within two days of the commencement of the work, it quickly dawned on the residents that they will be short changed.
The contractor apparently did not bargain for the presence of persons knowledgeable in the field of road construction living in the community, and the trickery was soon spotted.
Instead of excavating the sections of the road that needed excavation, it was clear when this newspaper visited the area, that the contractor merely poured some crusher-run into the holes and leveled it.
This of course angered residents who quickly cried out “corruption”.
“We are not pleased with the road because all those bad sections should have been excavated; that is not being done. They just come and rip up certain parts of the road, add on some crusher run, and that’s it. No foundation,” one resident explained.
The residents explained that some time last year they pooled their money and filled some of the holes in the road. It would appear that the contractor is doing the same despite being awarded a $32M contract.
“Mr. Rekha say $32 million spending on this road…based in this quality of work, I can’t see $32M spending here. Dis is not even $10M,” a resident declared.

The same craters are filled with crusher-run without proper excavation.

According to the residents the, contractor had mobilized for the sand and loam that is being dumped in the community because he knew that he was supposed to do some excavation work.
“However, when we check with the contractor staff, they say that somebody from the Ministry said don’t dig out nowhere, so probably that sand and loam going back,” a resident stated.
Ramdat, and elderly resident of the community, said that while he is not an expert on road construction, he is sensible enough to realize that some “crookishness is taking place.”
“We are very thankful to the government and the ministry, but for the money they are spending, let them send a qualified engineer every second of the day to supervise this work,” he said.
He told Kaieteur News that although the government has advised that citizens play their part in supervising works in their community, they are not privy to the contract so that a proper assessment can be made.
“This is the way corruption is going. All the sand and loam that they bring here will end up going to another project because not one bucket has been used on this road. What will happen to all the money that is being spent on this road? The money will go in somebody’s pocket,” Ramdat stated.
But when contacted yesterday, Works Minister Robeson Benn said that his ministry is monitoring the project to ensure that the contractor does not deviate from the road design.
“Once there is a design, the contractor will be forced to follow that design,” Minister Benn stated.
He explained that he had personally visited the site last week Friday to encourage the contractor to complete the work on time.
The Minister said that only yesterday he was informed of some of the residents’ concerns and he has undertaken to send an engineer from his ministry to examine the work being done.
“All the time we been punishing fuh a proper road and now de government spending money but in another six months dis road gone again. That is why we saying that we want a proper road to be done,” an Enterprise resident declared.
“We don’t want to reach a stage where we will have to block de road and de police gone gat fuh come and torture some ah we. We asking peacefully fuh a proper road.”