Contractor agrees to fix crumbling $32.1 M Tuschen Road

Dec 02, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Fawaz Bacchus, the contractor who was paid over $32M to repair sections of the Tuschen Access Road is denying that it was as a result of poor work that has caused it to deteriorate eight months after the works were completed.

A deplorable section of the Tucshen New Housing Scheme main access road.

The current poor state of the road was highlighted recently by residents by way of a letter which was published in the Sunday’s edition of this newspaper. Residents noted that some parts of the road, especially in the vicinity of the Tuschen Police Outpost, are in a deplorable state which severely affects road users, mainly motorists. They described in the letter that there are huge potholes, pools of water and mud in some parts of the road.
Bacchus however clarified his company was contracted to execute sectional repairs of the road and the sections which were in need of repairs were rehabilitated. He was keen to note that the section under the spotlight was not in a deplorable condition while he was executing his job. Nevertheless, he noted that his company is committed to remedying this section of the road, so as to maintain its reputation.
Kaieteur News was told that the contractor was paid some $32,147,360 to carry out “sectional repairs” to the roadway. It was related to this publication by Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar that the road was never accepted by his ministry because their engineers were not happy with the works done. “We have not signed off on that road, when we looked at how the road was being done, I had asked for an inquiry on the construction of the road; the road was not yet signed off by our ministry as completed,” he explained.
Minister Indar had noted too that the contract for the area was done under “sectional repairs” (meaning that only the sections that were bad had to be repaired). According to him, only a small part of the road was completed by the contractor.
When the Minister was asked what action would be taken against the contractor, he said that “the contractor under the defect liability will have to remedy the part that deteriorated” while, the Ministry will fix the part of the road that they are responsible for.
Meanwhile, the Ministry in a subsequent press release yesterday stated that the section that has current pot holes were not paved by Fawaz Bacchus.
“The large pot holes seen now did not surface at the time these inspections were conducted and have developed due to water being trapped in this 70 meters section of the road, due to private property concrete to the road shoulder and lack of drainage on the paved sidewalk,” the Ministry highlighted.
The Ministry further noted that the lifespan of the existing asphaltic concrete has elapsed given that the road was constructed many years ago. And as a result, its surface has worn down and is under one inch thick and heavy raveling is occurring which cannot bear the traffic load conditions.
In conclusion, the Public Works Ministry said that it would immediately address the deplorable sections while the contractor was instructed to remedy the defects, “since it’s within the contractor’s one year defects liability period under the contract.’
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