The Story Within The Story…Who are the people supervising our contractors?

Sep 30, 2018 News

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By Leonard Gildarie

You are living in a home and because it is too small, you have decided to make it bigger. So you hire a contractor. You tell him what the job is and explain that because you have only two bedrooms, the work has to be planned in a manner that would cause as little disruption as possible.
The contractor is given strict orders to not block the driveway and to ensure that the materials are stored in a safe manner away from the garage. He can’t work in the nights because the children are sleeping.
These are the ground rules.
You then hire your cousin to keep an eye on things.
At 7am on Monday morning, the hammering has already started and the contractor has dumped sand and stone on the driveway and has started mixing. There is lots of dust. You can’t drive your car out to work.
The neighbours are complaining that the sand truck has dumped materials in their driveway too.
The contractor does not clean up after work.
Here is the million dollar question- who do we blame? The contractor or your cousin?
I was barely back here for a few months in the mid-2000s and traverse the East Bank Demerara roadway, the four-lane which was under construction at the time.
Social media was not that prominent then. The complaints were falling on deaf ears. The lines were long and the honking horns a daily reminder of hopelessness.
Fast-forward to today.
The East Coast road expansion by China Railway is in full swing. It is needed because of the rapid growth in the number of vehicles on the roadways and the fact that we have to start looking to the future.
Over recent weeks, the complaints have been many. The bypass roads were in poor conditions and alternate side streets were potholed.
It is a grueling hell for drivers and passengers hitting the road every morning for work in the city.
By the time you get to work, if you are seated in a minibus, you are all hot and bothered.
It would have sent my stress levels up.
Traffic was crawling and it took over an hour to get past a few of the choke points.
It was plain out poor traffic management.
Residents were complaining of the dust and the dumping and some businesses reportedly just closed its doors.
An environmentalist just over a week ago pointed to the very critical environmental management plan that the contractor would have signed onto with the contract.
It spells out in clear details how the contractor would manage traffic and mitigate dust and other issues.
It would speak also on the storage of materials.
With regards to traffic management plan, the contractor would have to create bypasses, hire traffic managers (flaggers) and ensure that the appropriate signs are placed strategically along the way to warn motorists.
Somehow, somebody was not paying attention.
There are questions to be asked about the East Coast road. Where were the supervising engineers who were hired to monitor China Railway?
Did they prepare reports for their clients – the Ministry of Public Infrastructure?
Were those reports critical of the efforts or lack thereof of China Railway to adhere to its environmental plan that was designed to reduce the congestion and other inconveniences?
If so, why did the contractor not take note?
On the flip side, somebody at the Ministry would have had to be taking note.
China Railway visited the offices of Kaieteur News this past week and assured that it is taking steps to correct some of the shortcomings.
They are hiring more flaggers. Officials admitted that there were challenges along the way including with the foundation of the old road. Those challenges disrupted the work flow.
I like the willingness of China Railway to engage.
We are also learning of a one-week deadline given by the Ministry to China Railway to introduce a number of measures to reduce the congestion.
However, we are back to the elephant in the room.
How much are we paying the supervising engineers for this massive project? What are their responsibilities?
They are the ones who have to sign off on work done for payments to be made to the contractor.
Don’t tell me that they did not hear the complaints or notice that the environmental management plan was not being followed.
It is time we take off the gloves with our “independent” consultants.
If it is they are encountering problems with the contractors and no one is listening, there are alternatives.
We lose millions of dollars daily because of the congestion- and from wear and tear of vehicles to loss to man hours.
All because we do not pay attention.
The Ministry of Public Infrastructure has its hands full and in my estimation has been doing an excellent job on the city streets.
Places like Port Kaituma, Region One and the Linden/Ituni/Kwakwani road have seen significant improvements with travel time slashed by hours.
It is not easy with our limitations with contractors.
But we have to keep an eye on the ball.
David Patterson, as the Minister, to his credit, has always been ready to engage and act rapidly on issues raised with him.
We need more ministers who are proactive like him.
We need to hold our contractors accountable.
We need to start blacklisting the ones that don’t.
As a people, we do have our rights and it is unthinkable in this day and age that people continue to be afraid of speaking up.
The world has become a smaller place and the backlash can be swift if we believe that nothing will come of it.

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