Patterson meets officials to remedy delayed road works in NA

In light of complaints of unnecessary downtime received from residents of New Amsterdam, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson led a team to the town on Wednesday to review ongoing road works being executed there.
Accompanying the Minister were Permanent Secretary, Kenneth Jordan; and Coordinator/Chief Works Officer of the Work Services Group, Geoffrey Vaughn.
After arriving in the Ancient County early Wednesday morning, Minister Patterson

turned up to inspect the progress of works being undertaken by his Ministry on Main and Republic Streets in New Amsterdam. The visit came on the heels of reports to the Ministry of slothfulness in the execution of the project, which has caused inconveniences to the residents of the community.
During the visit, Minister Patterson met with a number of officials including the Ministry’s Regional Engineer for Region Six; the contractor, Associated Contractor Company; and a representative from the Community Oversight Committee to ascertain the reasons behind the delay and determine the way forward.
Following discussions, a number of solutions were determined, including the reopening of one lane of the road to vehicular traffic to reduce the level of inconvenience experienced by the residents. Nonetheless, it was emphasised that all necessary steps, such as the testing of materials, must be taken to ensure that the work will stand the test of time, despite the delays these steps may cause.
“We don’t want to do something that’s just fast; we want to do something that is correct,” Minister Patterson stressed. He also emphasised that any internal conflicts must be put aside since the residents were ultimately the ones being affected.
The works, which include scarification, asphalting, and deep patching of failed sections, are now expected to conclude by mid-December.
Works have also been stalled on Republic Street and the visit to this site saw Minister Patterson urging remobilisation of the contractor to ensure that the project progresses as planned. “These are main streets in New Amsterdam and residents should not have to go through this; we cannot do this to people,” Patterson pointed out to the engineer. Meanwhile, the team from the Ministry also visited the East Bank Berbice road, the second such trip to the project in recent months.
Just three weeks ago, Patterson led a team to the project site for a first-hand look at the progress of works to date. He also met with officials from Berbice to discuss infrastructural works being undertaken in the region.