5-yr-old CJIA access road project delayed by utility pole

Feb 15, 2017 News

A Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GTT) utility pole at the Timehri Police Station is

Ron Rahaman

delaying the completion of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) access road.
The construction of this four-lane access road leading to CJIA, Timehri, was awarded about five years ago to BK International.
Chief Roads and Bridges Officer of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Ron Rahaman, said the new three-kilometer access road leading to CJIA will be completed by the first quarter of 2017.
Rahaman was at the time answering questions raised about the road before the Public Accounts Committee yesterday. He explained that to date, the project is 98 per cent complete.
“The removal of a GTT utility pole at the Timehri Police Station is what is holding back the project”.
All the works except for the removal of the pole belonging to GTT and some minor pavements are expected to be done. Rahaman said the contractor completed all other works in the last week of December last year.
Further he explained that GTT has since given consent to remove the pole, but the contractor has to pay the company just over half a million dollars to remove the pole.
“GTT sent an invoice with the amount to remove the pole and we wrote to the contractor last year to make the payment, however, the contractor has not paid as yet, so we will be having a meeting to discuss this further,” Rahaman said.
The Chief Roads and Bridges Officer said that a meeting will be held with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Balraj Balram, and the contractor to have the issue resolved so that the project could be completed shortly.
In 2011, a contract for the sum of US$3M was signed for the work on the new access road.
The $558M contract was awarded in 2011 and was supposed to be part of a bigger project for a four-lane highway between the airport and the city.
The project was started under the previous administration.
The Coalition Government has said very little about what was happening.
According to past news reports, BK in 2014 had taken media outlets on a tour of the access road project which is supposed to start at the Timehri junction where the police station is to the airport.
BK complained then that the delay was because GTT was still to remove some cables and poles.
B.K had lamented that the utilities companies were to be blamed for the slow work.

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