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Brand-new Essequibo stelling falling apart

Apr 29, 2010 News

…supporting pontoon sinks in river

A pontoon anchoring the ramp of the multi-million-dollar stelling at Good Hope, Essequibo, sank Monday night forcing yet another delay in the commissioning of the facility.
Minister of Public Works and Transport, Robeson Benn, confirming the incident yesterday, disclosed that work was being done on the pontoon but unusually high tides swamped it, sending it to the bottom of the Essequibo River.
The Minister assured that the facility will be completed in a “few days time” since it was “only a mishap”.
There was evident stress on the roll-on-roll-off ramp from the missing pontoon and upset residents said that the project should have been completed months ago but there seems to be no “hurry” to get it done with “much money spent” for the kind of stelling that was built.
A senior Public Works official yesterday said that workers may have “messed up” by loosing crucial supporting parts of the structure attached to the pontoon.
In January, tests conducted on the facility, said to be costing around $574M, found a design flaw.
The stelling, which will save Essequibo commuters some two hours of travel time across the Essequibo River and government $1M weekly on ferry fuel, was expected to be completed, but a test run witnessed by government officials and contractor, B.K International, found faults.
Minister of Transport, Robeson Benn, had explained that the designer of the stelling had made errors and government is now scrambling to correct these and have the facility running within two weeks.
The ferries are continuing to dock at Adventure Stelling, in the meantime.
In January, Benn had explained that there was a six-foot difference in the offloading ramp to the vessels and this could have even led to the sinking of the vessel if the heavier tonnage trucks – in the 20 tonnes range – were used.
Tests in January found that only trucks of 5-6 tonnes could have safely used the vessel.

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