Who is to be blamed for the concrete poles that collapsed in South Ruimveldt?

Dec 24, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor,

In a News Article which appeared in KN on Dec. 19, the General Secretary of the PPP and Vice-President of the Republic of Guyana Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo expressed his opinion that,” the Government starts firing people who are not doing their work and are being paid to oversee projects not being done properly and therefore neglecting their duties”.

His opinion was expressed after several concrete poles collapsed during their construction on an expanded roadway in South Ruimveldt.

The collapse of several newly constructed concrete electrical transmission poles in South Ruimveldt, Georgetown raises a number of troubling questions regarding responsibility for this mishap. The Ministry of Public Works (MPW) was given permission by the Guyana Power and Light Corporation (GPLC) to remove wooden poles from one location and replaced them to another site with concrete poles to accommodate an expanded roadway. Therefore, the responsibility to make the changes was that of the MPW.

Accordingly, a contract was awarded by the MPW to execute the works.

The evidence suggests that during construction some the poles were not anchored properly into the ground. The weight of the electrical wires and accessories between poles together with excessive lateral wind pressures on the system caused it to sway too far in one direction which took it and the concrete poles with it to the ground because of insufficient resistance from the soil into which some of the poles were planted.

The question as to who is responsible for this catastrophe is yet to be answered. The poles were not broken so it could be assumed that their design was adequate to carry the expected loads. The contract specifications would have stated the depths to which the poles should be planted below ground level to resist system movement in any direction. Soils -clays, silts, pegasse, sand, etc., each has different frictional resistance to any force imposed upon it. Therefore, the engineer had to calculate what this resistance was to determine the length of the poles which should be buried in the ground to cause the soil to resist any lateral movement of the poles. Several methods are available to anchor poles firmly into the ground to resist lateral movements and the inquiry as to the cause of this fiasco should examine whether any of these was used or not. The ongoing road and drainage works on the Aubrey Barker Road may have contributed to this incident but they are not the major cause. The specifications, contract documents, execution of the works and the design will bear this out.