Dear Editor,
I wrote several letters about the deplorable state of Agriculture Road last year, but it seemed to be going on deaf ears. 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 have repaired 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 KP 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 of 2017.’’
As I mentioned before the work executed for about 800 metres he claimed was 1230 metres cannot cost $59,031,149 or even if his 1230 metres was correct to just dig out bad broken concrete and fill the road with’ ‘crusher-run’ and rolled it over with asphalt cannot cost that sum. I believe and many others as well 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 metres but only completed 1230m from his own words: why did he refuse to complete the remaining 1770 metres 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 1230 metres he claimed that is still incomplete. I am calling on the Auditor General’s Office to carry out an audit on the $59,031,149 that was spent on 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 roadway in Agriculture Road, I heard a sudden sound like a bomb; my friend and I rushed to the scene. A young lady was driving her RAV4 vehicle and her tyre was punctured in a very deep pothole; her vehicle skidded around and hit a parked truck.
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 trench. I have seen two such incidents already. This is a road that has the Guyana School of Agriculture and NAREI, but it’s an eyesore 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.
Sincerely,
Reverend Gideon Cecil
