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A CPM should be a requirement to ensure the Hope Project is built within its budget

Nov 08, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr. Chandon’s response to Mr. Sohan’s letter re Transparency for the Hope Project that appeared in both SN and Kaieteur News dated 6/11/10 respectively and in my opinion Mr. Chandon appears to have misunderstood the intent of Mr. Sohan’s letter, which dealt with a requirement for a Critical Path Method (CPM) for the canal section of the work, since the Government will be undertaking this work themselves and even boasted that they will be saving US$500,000 in doing so.
On the Government web site the consultants stated that the cost for the canal portion is around US$5million and deducting the cost for the 14 excavators purchased assuming US$2 million, US$1 million for the geotextile and deducting the savings mentioned above, the cost to construct the canal itself is around US$1.5 million. The costs for bulldozers and other essential equipment also have to be added, reducing the cost to construct even further.
Since about a mile of this canal from the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) to Crown Dam and perhaps further north has to be constructed on pegasse material that has a poor bearing capacity (literally zero shear stress), it is essential to have a CPM carried out to ensure costs are kept in check. It would be a daunting task to build this approximately 400ft. wide, 10.5 km long canal within this allotted budget.
Frankly, as an engineer who has worked in the EDWC and aware of the soil conditions, I would strongly recommend that this project be aborted due to the poor pegasse foundation material to be encountered, unless the NDIA resort to using shovel men perhaps 300 to 400 (this will help the unemployment situation in Guyana tremendously) to carry out all excavation and other works.
Of course the cost to construct will escalate due to triple handling of the material and construction time will be longer. The integrity of the dam constructed in this area will also be questionable. Shovel men will also have to be used to excavate and backfill for the three-door sluice at the EDWC end, as well which will be time consuming and increase that cost as well.
I will leave the Engineering Consultants to figure out where the selected 30 KPA soil material for the dam will be sourced, and how it will be transported to the site and also how the 100ft. prestress piles and 18 ft. long SSPiles for the 3-door sluice will be transported to site and driven to its design level, since it will be near impossible for heavy equipment even on timber mats to work on the pegasse soil.
My advice to local contractors hoping to bid on sections of this project is to exercise caution when submitting bids even for the eight-door sluice and the prestress bridge. Recent bid results for operation and servicing etc for the machines varied by some 800% from $24,000 to $197,000 per month with the engineer’s estimate at $26,000 indicate a sense of trepidation for this project.
It should be noted that the builder for the EDWC dam Mr. Bill Russell in 1879 used shovel men to build the original dam. Labour was cheap in those days.
A few weeks ago the Minister of Agriculture indicated that work on the canal begins and lambasted opponents of the proposed project. The President also later concurred.
Under the circumstances since the consultants for the project appear to refrain from responding to letters of engineering nature I am looking forward to a response from Mr. Chandon as to how far work has progressed to date on the canal section of the work in the pegasse area, since the Minister’s statement a few weeks ago.
Malcolm Alli

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