‘Marked improvement’ at Leguan Stelling project – Min Edghill

…contractor decries unavailability of labour

While there has been ‘marked improvement’ on the Leguan Stelling project, the progression of works is not up to pace, and authorities have signalled that it must be expedited.
Public Works Minister Juan Edghill inspected the works on Wednesday, when he shared, “Even though it is not what we would like it to be, it is a marked improvement of what was happening here. Basically, we started to see light at the end of the tunnel. That is a good thing, but the work needs to be accelerated.”
The Minister had engaged the contractor, who reportedly communicated that there is a shortage of labour. As such, the Ministry has offered to publicise vacancies and contact the Board of Industrial Training to fill those employment gaps.
Edghill notified, “He has said he can’t get workers to work. We said send the specifications you’re looking for. We will put it on our Facebook page and send it to the Board of Industrial Training. Maybe some of the people we have trained will be prepared to come and work on this project. We want to see a doubling up. We want to see this project moving faster. It’s not what we want it to be right now. We should have been way ahead of this, but it is much improved than what was going on.”
The project aims to rehabilitate the timber infrastructure and expand the stelling platform through a reinforced concrete stelling that will be linked to the existing structure. Adding to the works is a link-span bridge to facilitate ferries and the offloading/onloading of goods, passengers and vehicles.
In 2022, the Government terminated S Maraj Contracting Service’s $413 million contract to repair the deplorable Leguan Stelling on the ground of project delays. Despite the company being granted several extensions, the project, which was supposed to be completed by June 18, 2019, had still not been completed.
Meanwhile, Minister Edghill also conducted verification of ongoing works on the Island of Wakenaam. Projects inspected include the rehabilitation of the main access to Sarah Cremation Site to the tune of $36 million; main access road to Wakenaam Secondary School at $12 million; southern perimeter to San Souci Primary School, Wakenaam Island by Harry Enterprise to the tune of $13 million, among others.
Multi-million-dollar projects were also awarded for the rehabilitation of several streets and revetment works.