Supenaam stelling could be ready by mid-2011 - Minister Benn

Supenaam stelling could be ready by mid-2011 – Minister Benn

Dec 22, 2010 News

– material, equipment being mobilised for repairs

By Leonard Gildarie
Repairs to the troubled Supenaam stelling could be completed, with the facility being placed in use as early as the first half of 2011, government says.
Already, a little more than $50M has been set aside to fix a number of flaws which saw the stelling’s ramp buckling under the weight of heavy vehicles, days after it was open to ferry traffic in May.

The Supenaam stelling, which was closed earlier this year after a loading ramp buckled, is to be repaired shortly and could be operational by mid-2011, authorities say.

Questioned about the status of the facility which cost hundreds of millions to construct, and was marred by delays, Minister of Public Works, Robeson Benn, on Monday said that material and equipment are being sourced and mobilised and works are expected to begin shortly.
Asked about a timeline, the Minister was confident that it could be way before mid-year.
Following the collapse of the ramp which effectively closed the stelling, President Bharrat Jagdeo had ordered a report of the incident tasking Prime Minister Samuel Hinds to oversee it.
Two private engineers were hired to investigate the incident.
There had been meetings with several of the parties involved in the construction of the stelling including the contractors, BK International; the Ministry of Local Government, which was the executing agency, the Ministry of Public Works, the supervisors, Vikab Engineering and the designers, SNC Lavelin.
Key to these meetings was which parties would have been footing the bill to fix the defects and subsequent damage to the facility. However, the report has not been released nor has blame been apportioned, at least publicly.
In January, the stelling was handed over to the Ministry of Public Works which claimed that it had raised concerns over some problems that were evident.
Almost four days after it was opened to traffic in May, the stelling was forced to close operations after its ramp buckled under the weight of a truck boarding a ferry.
The contractor, BK International, distancing itself from the incident, took media houses on an inspection shortly after and stated that modification works on the ramp by the Ministry of Public Works had caused the problems.
Late in April, an extra pontoon being installed by the Ministry sank while work was being done to attach it to the ramp.
BK International, during the tour, had claimed that the modifications, including the extra pontoon and the drawbridge, were not needed, since tests had found that the one pontoon could have taken the weight.
The officials believed that the modification works resulted in the structural integrity of the stelling being compromised.
During a press conference, Minister of Public Works, Robeson Benn had stressed that his Ministry only took over the facility in January, and in a pressure situation, immediately started works to rectify a number of key problems inherited from the construction phase to ensure that facility was brought to use.
The Ministry expended an additional $18M to add a new pontoon and a drawbridge to allow vehicles to load and offload from the ferries. This was expenditure in addition to $431M that the structure is said to have cost.
Benn stressed that when his Ministry took over the facilities in January, it was immediately recognised that two problems had to be fixed. This included the issue of the bridge leading to the ferries and the question of flotation, since the one pontoon stabilising it could not have worked. And there was the question of fixing the large gap between the ferries’ loading area and the ramp.
According to Benn, in January, tests using a loaded truck found that the pontoon was at the unsafe level when significant weight was added.
Further, it was decided that it would have been highly impractical to attach drawbridges to all vessels docking there. The ideal situation was to build a drawbridge from the stelling’s bridge.
Inspections of the buckling of the ramp found that while the drawbridge remained intact, the ramp’s end beam was bent which raised questions of the quality of the steel used, among other issues, the Minister had pointed out.
It was also noted that although the facility was supposed to take up to 30 tons in weight from trucks, on the average, it was inconceivable that the ramp could have buckled if it was built to specification.
On questions why BK International had been issued a Certificate of Completion, Benn noted that his Ministry was not involved in this, since the stelling was being managed by the Project Execution Unit of the Minister of Local Government. The Public Works Ministry, he emphasized, only took over the facilities in January.
He insisted that there was a supervisory engineer, Vikab Engineering, which was monitoring the works to ensure that the facility was built to specification.
The officials declined to comment on questions whether they were happy with the overall project and if the preliminary designs could have been done better.
The stelling has been hailed as key to ease the woes of Essequibo residents who wanted to visit the city. With the Adventure stelling in a dilapidated state, authorities had pinpointed Supenaam as an ideal area for the facility which they said would cut ferry time from Region Two to Parika by hours.