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Canal # 2 culverts buckle weeks after construction … at what cost?
A culvert without any support
Residents of Canal Number Two have expressed anger over drainage works at Canal Number Two, West Bank Demerara. The black High Density Polyethylene (HDP) pipes were placed under the roadway and covered with dirt without any kind of supporting structure.
Already, in some parts, Mondesir Street, at Canal Number Two, has started to sink where the four pipes are located, a clear indication that not much thought went into the project.
Mondesir Street is a main access road used by cane and other cash crop farmers in Canal Number Two and the culverts would have provided crucial drainage for those farmlands located there.
However, already the pipes which have been only covered in dirt are showing signs of pressure from the traffic and are bent in some places.Last week, residents of the Claybrick road in Canal Number Two called Kaieteur News and pointed to a huge depression in the road above one of the pipes.
“What kind of wuk is this? Like they don’t know what they doing? Even a school child will tell you that you can’t do wuk like this.”
Another resident said that government had been calling for citizens to monitor projects and report if there are problems, noted that it is only a matter of days before the HDP culverts collapse.
On Friday, a government engineer handling the laying of the pipes said that works on the pipe are not completed as yet and equipment will be going in again shortly.
However, it was unclear what this meant since it is unheard of that contractors would place down pipes, cover it up and then do works to build a supporting structure to take some of the anticipated weight that is likely.
Kaieteur News was unable to confirm reports that these HDP culverts cost an estimated $2M each.
According to one resident, if this is the case, then the contract was grossly overpriced.
It was said that the 36 inches pipes cost approximately $300,000 each. With construction works estimated around $200,000, residents said that if it is indeed $2M for the laying of each culvert, then Guyanese are not getting value for their tax money.
This newspaper has learnt that several more of the pipes have been laid in Canal Number Two area to boost drainage.
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