Inadequate funds allocated for upgrade of the nation’s roads

Apr 07, 2014 News

– APNU

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) believes that not enough money has been allocated for the upgrade of the nation’s roads.
At least this is according to Annette Ferguson of the APNU, who during her budget presentation last week said that as long as the allocations do not meet the needs of the persons under her constituency and others, then the Minister will have to “go and come again.”
The sum of $13.7B has been budgeted to improve roads and bridges, where $12.9B will go towards roads and $844.2M for bridges.
According to Ferguson, making a comparative analysis of what was actually budgeted and spent in 2013, since the sum of $12.6B was approved, where $11.2B went towards roads and $1.4B on bridges, “the question to ask, is the proposed allocation for road works adequate…I can only guess the answer to be no.”

APNU’s Annette Ferguson

Ferguson drew reference to the Finance Minister’s report that in 2014 there will be a financial feasibility study for the construction of a bypass road from Ogle to Eccles.
This she said is welcomed by APNU, “since we believe that the time has come for the construction of new roads, which will aid in the reduction of heavy traffic that our people experience on a daily basis while travelling on the East Coast and East Bank roads.”
She did point out that it is anticipated that the Minister would be in a position to provide the information on the study and more so “couldn’t another area further on the East Coast be identified to conduct such a study.”
She questioned also the rationale behind the work that was expected to be done in the Parika/Ruby backdam roads last year and asked for an update to be provided in the House
“In 2013, we saw and read of citizens taking action into their hands, that is, by way of protesting and blocking of roads in their respective communities, just to get the attention of the relevant authorities to address their problems.”
Recalling a statement made by her APNU colleague, Joseph Harmon, Ferguson told the House “we are of the view that Public Infrastructure must serve the people and the people must be the centre of it and it’s not that the people must serve the Public Infrastructure, which is currently happening.”
According to Ferguson, the APNU’s view is that the only change to this is through Local Government Elections.
Ferguson noted that the sum of $11.2B was spent in 2012 on roads and in 2013, a total of $11.3B was spent, yet there has been no significant improvement in the rehabilitating, reconstruction and repairing of the roads.
Ferguson affirmed that “what we continue to see happening is the waste of taxpayers’ monies on capital projects, such as the Marriott, Specialty Hospital, Amaila Hydropower as our citizens continue to bemoan the spending of monies.”
She observed too that the audit reports laid before the assembly speak volumes on the amount of irregularities, that is, “the over payment to contractors.”
Ferguson spoke of visiting areas such as the Sophia and told the House “I empathise with those who reside in that community… Most referred to the roads as the abortion roads…In some cases they are forced to pay extra in transportation cost.”
She said too that another community that continues to be neglected by the administration is Kaneville, on the East Bank of Demerara, for which there is no provision this year.
Ferguson said that there should be an immediate cessation of the frequent “road patching” and “pot hole filling.”
She said “the solution to road repairing is capping of the entire stretch…With this, our road ways would last longer and minimize wasteful spending.”