There has been no word from the Office of the Prime Minister on whether the review of the unusable new Supenaam stelling has begun.
President Bharrat Jagdeo ordered the review of the currently inoperable Supenaam ferry stelling last week, following charges by construction company, BK International, that modifications done by the Ministry of Works led to its current state.
The ministry has denied this and said it was the Transport and Harbours Department that took over a facility “which was inadequate to handle the typical flotation as well as the arrangement to get on to the vessel for the heavy truck traffic from the Essequibo”.
Attempts by this newspaper to glean some information from the Prime Minister’s office were futile yesterday. Earlier this week, Stabroek News was told that a statement will be issued. Reminded of this yesterday, an employee said “we are not ready”.
Minister of Transport, Robeson Benn said on Saturday that the Ministry of Local Government supervised the construction of the Pomeroon/Supenaam ferry stelling and later issued a certificate of completion to BK International even though the completed project had obvious defects.
The ferry stelling, now inoperable because of structural problems, was completed to the tune of $431 million of contract approved funds; an additional $17.2 million was expended by the Ministry of Public Works in modification works, Benn had said.
The modifications included a drawbridge and a pontoon, both of which Benn said were “absolutely necessary” because the ministry took over the stelling “with great concerns”.
The drawbridge was a major source of contention between BK and the Works Ministry, with BK saying that it should not have been attached to the loading ramp and Benn saying that the installation of the 1.7-tonne steel drawbridge was to guarantee the safe offloading and reloading of vehicles, particularly trucks.
