Benn says did not send officer home
Minister of Transport and Hydraulics Robeson Benn said that his recent visit to the Bee Hive North access bridge, about which residents have raised concerns, did not result in a senior Region Four officer being sent on leave.
The minister explained that after his visit to the bridge last Friday he had said that he would recommend that the officer, from whom the ministry previously requested information about the project and who paid the contractor although the bridge was not built to specifications, be sent on leave pending investigations.
“I cannot send home someone that does not work in my ministry or make that sort of assertion,” Benn told Stabroek News via telephone adding, “…It is for Region Four and the Local Government to take action.” The Government Information Agency (GINA) had reported on July 10 that Benn had sent Region Four officer on leave over the matter.
The bridge provides access from the East Coast Public Road to Bee Hive North. It is the only way by which vehicles can access the area. Construction on the $1.1 million bridge commenced last December, a resident told Stabroek News on Sunday, and was completed within days. However, the resident recalled that construction workers continuously returned to the site to make adjustments.
The GINA release issued last Friday evening had reported that Benn had sent a senior officer in Region Four on leave and had ordered an investigation into the misuse of road works funds after an access bridge at Bee Hive, East Coast of Demerara was found to be “fragile and useless”. This report has since been described as “erroneous” and Benn stressed that no regional officer was sent on leave.
Benn said the bridge was not built to specifications and this was raised with the Region Four Regional Democratic Council (RDC). The RDC, according to the minister, was asked to deal with the issue but was slow to give the ministry information when it was requested. Despite being advised by the ministry against paying the contractor, Benn said, the RDC still made payments.
A Bee Hive North resident, the minister further reported, had contacted his ministry about the bridge. The resident, Benn said, wanted to transport a few truck loads of material to “build up” his yard but was uncertain about whether the bridge would withstand the weight.
The ministry’s Chief Engineer was asked to look at the bridge as a result, Benn said, and it was discovered that the bridge was not built to specifications. “The bridge is not attached to the beams and instead of four inch screws, the contractor substituted three inch screws,” GINA had reported the Chief Engineer as saying.
The bridge, the GINA report had said, will soon undergo reconstruction by the Ministry of Public Works’ Chief Engineer. At present the bridge can only take seven tonnes, the weight of an empty truck.
Meanwhile, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Kellawan Lall, according to GINA, had said that the bridge is a regional project and that the Regional Executive Officer (REO) should have monitored the progress of construction and it should have been inspected before the contractor was paid.
The Region Four REO Shafdar Alli, when contacted on Sunday evening, had said that the responsibility of overseeing the construction of the Bee Hive Bridge was that of the Grove/Haslington Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC).
When asked whether the RDC still held overall responsibility for the bridge even though it was an NDC project, Alli responded, “Yes. I think so”. He declined to comment further and efforts to contact him since have been futile.
Chairman of the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) for Region Four Clement Corlette told Stabroek News on Sunday that the bridge “is not a Region Four project”. He explained that the “government gave the Grove/Haslington NDC a $3 million grant” and that the bridge was the NDC’s project.
Corlette said that the RDC had received the first complaint about the bridge earlier this year. The bridge he said was too high and vehicles were having trouble crossing it. This issue, according to Corlette was subsequently addressed by the NDC.
Several Bee Hive North residents told this newspaper on Sunday that the contractors left the bridge “rough”. The beams, according to them, had not been bolted in place earlier this year.
“You see the side of that drain there,” one resident said pointed to the area, “they [the contractors] meet it boarded-off but they left it just like now. Just now it going to erode and block off the drain…they really didn’t take their time with this bridge and we are being inconvenienced as a result.”
