Officials of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) yesterday opened bids by companies for the project to construct roads, drains, structures and to install a pure water distribution network at Mahdia, in Region 8.
Three bids were submitted. Two of them were below the engineer’s estimate of $50,685,580. Ivor Allen submitted a bid of $30,926,170 while Alvin Chowramootoo Construction Service had a bid of $44,153,230. Mohammed, Ramzan Ali-Khan Construction submitted the other bid, which was $73,631,700.
Last July, a massive fire ravaged Mahdia’s main commercial district. Efforts by residents to extinguish the fire were severely hampered by the absence of water.
One resident of Mahdia told Stabroek News that while there has been improvement in the water supply, it is still not satisfactory. According to the resident, while some sections of the community get water, others do not. “The supply is not enough for the growing population in Mahdia,” the resident said.
The resident added that pipelines run for 6 or 7 miles to the mining territories and heavy duty vehicles traversing the areas break the pipelines.
This, he said, compounds the water problem in the community.
Following the fire, Housing Minister Irfaan Ali said between 2005 and then, $80.5 million had been spent by the administration on the water system in the community.
He explained that the community is supplied with water via a gravity system fed through a spring box. According to him, during the heavy rainfall prior to the fire, the box became silted, which affected the inflow.
Guyana Water Inc. was working on correcting this fault when the fire broke out.
