This deplorable road needs urgent repairs

May 28, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor,
I wrote several letters about the deplorable state of Agriculture Road last year but it seemed to be going on deaf ears and this road continues to deteriorate daily.
Last year, Project Engineer Anthony A. Haynes, started some road works from the beginning of Agriculture Road. He graded the road from the beginning to the end of NAREI but he claimed to repair this road up to Block CC, Mon Repos.
According to his letter published in reply to my letter dated August 4, 2017, he said the following, ‘’For the benefit of the Reverend and the general public, please be informed that the rehabilitation of Agriculture Road, Mon Repos/Triumph, is being undertaken by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure under its Miscellaneous Roads Programme 2017.
“The Contractor is K.P. Thomas and Sons Incorporated, the Project Engineer is Anthony A. Haynes, the contract sum is $59,031,149 and the site extends a distance of approximately 1230m. Carriageway works include the upgrading of the road structure with mixed loam and/or crusher run and sealing using asphaltic concrete. The contract is scheduled to end in September 2017.’’
As I mentioned before, the work executed for about 800 meters he claimed was 1,230M, cannot cost $59,031,149 or even if his 1.230 M was correct to just dig out bad broken concrete and fill it with ‘crusher- run’ and roll it over with asphalt cannot cost that sum.
I believe and many others do, that it cannot even cost $10 million.
My concern was this engineer graded from the beginning of Agriculture Road to NAREI. That’s approximately two miles or 3000 meters but only completed 1230M from his own words: Why did he refuse to complete the remaining 1770 Meters of deplorable road full of pot holes he was paid to complete?
He even went away with his machinery after he dug up the road and left it. It was when I wrote a second letter, he returned to complete the work of 1230M he claimed that is still incomplete. I am calling on the Auditor’s General Office to carry out an audit of $59,031,149 that was spent of one third of the job on Agriculture Road that is still incomplete.
Not long ago, I was sitting by a friend who lives near the road way in Agriculture Road when I heard a sudden sound like a bomb my friend and I rushed to the scene. A young lady was driving her RAVA vehicle; her tyre was punctured into a very deep pothole her vehicle skidded around and hit a parked truck and it was severely damaged.
The young lady fainted as we dragged her out her vehicle. Her vehicle was damaged; the cost to repair was over one million dollars in damage all because of a pothole that nearly cost her- her life.
Potholes are all over this road just after Block CC going to NAREI if you are not familiar with these potholes while driving, you can crash easily into another vehicle or land yourself into the trenc; I saw two such incidents already.
This is a road that has The Guyana School of Agriculture and NAREI but it’s an eye sore to this area and nation as a whole. It’s only when the Minister of Agriculture or the President is coming to the School, the administrators will get the students to patch the holes with sand.
I believe they all should be fired because they can’t even use their machinery to even throw in some brick to patch these holes that can drown a child when it rains. I am calling on the Hon. Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder and The Hon. Minister David Patterson of Public Works to come into Agriculture Road to see the deplorable state of this road.
This road needs urgent repairs and many of these business structures that occupy the road way to do business on the Government reserves should be removed. The trench on the right hand side needs urgent digging but many of these illegal businesses on the government reserves hinder the excavators to execute these works.
Something ought to be done urgently on this road; it’s a destination of accidents.
Regards,
Rev.Gideon Cecil

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