Georgetown: The Work Services Group (WSG) under the purview of the Ministry of Public Works, spent $1.7B on strengthening the country’s sea and river defences in 2013. This included the completion of 19 out of 20 roll-over projects from 2012 and eight out of 13 new contracts.
The WSG achieved 2.6 kilometres (km) of new construction, 1.4 km of rehabilitation and maintained 44.0 km of sea defence, Chief Works Officer, Geoffrey Vaughn said at a recent press conference. In 2013, the sea and river defence unit battled challenges of overtopping in the Kitty-Liliendaal area in March-April.
After assessing the situation, the Ministry began executing a one- kilometre stretch of strobe wall at the Georgetown sea wall, from Liliendaal to Conversation Tree. The extension has stemmed most of the overtopping in those areas, Vaughn said. Areas that benefitted from sea and river defence interventions in 2013 include Groenveldt, West Coast Demerara, Orangestein, East Bank Essequibo, Cane Garden, Leguan, Johanna Cecelia Essequibo and Zeeland, Wakenaam.
The ministry in 2013 signed a loan with the Caribbean Development Bank, $25M which will be spent on sea and river defences this year. Along with the Finance Ministry, the Public Works Ministry also signed recently, the tenth EDF loan agreement with the European Union, for $14.8 M euros which will be used as budget support for sea and river defence.
Roads and Bridges
The construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of roads and bridges infrastructure also continued in 2013, despite being severely affected by stone shortage. The shortfall stemmed from several problems; one being, the unprecedented rains experienced during the year, and the other, the issue of the shortage of building materials.
“As you would have known, earlier in the year and coming down to the end of the year, there were lots of talks in terms of whether or not aggregates were available. we had done our research, in house by our central transport and planning unit within the Work Services Group, and realised indeed that there was a shortfall in terms of the material aggregates for both roads and also residential or building of houses,” Vaughn said.
Major road projects completed in 2013 include foreign funded projects such as the rehabilitation of East and West Canje Roads, the Black Bush Polder road and Lot ‘B’ Bridges. These projects are all in their maintenance period. On-going is the upgrade to the East Bank Public Road. Vaughn said that this project had a few issues, including that of utilities which the WSG said it was sorting out. “We have GT&T who are reviewing the contract at present, so we are hoping that will be completed, so we will see much more work, on the four lanes on the East Bank,” he said.
A sum of $3.2B was allocated in 2013 for foreign projects, and at the end of 2013, 40 percent of the allocated sum was disbursed, according to Vaughn.
There are also a few studies that are ongoing, including the feasibility study for the Linden-Lethem road.
There is also the expansion for Sheriff Street-Mandela, the design for which has been completed and is being reviewed by the WSG design department. The ministry has shortlisted the consultants for this project.
The final design for the expansion of the East Coast Highway has been completed and is being reviewed, Vaughn said, while the West Coast Demerara Public Road upgrade project is also ongoing. The supervision and construction contracts are being assessed.
Under miscellaneous roads, WSG in 2013 brought surface finish to a total of 87,654 metres in Regions 1 to 6 with 78,808m brought to Double Bituminous Surface Treatment finish and 8, 846m to asphalt.
The WSG also completed nine bridges from Timehri to Rosignol, and also within the same length of area, repaired two culverts and reconstructed eight.
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