The Ministry of Public Works and Communication says it conducted a successful trial run of the Supenaam stelling yesterday morning and operations will commence shortly.
A GINA release reported the ministry as saying that an attempted trial run on March 17 by the M.V. Torani was aborted after the vessel arrived at the stelling during an abnormally high tide and rather than waiting for the water to recede, a practice which it said was not uncommon at other stellings, it was decided to divert the ferry to the Adventure stelling.
“The practice run (yesterday) lasted for approximately 40 minutes and saw the offloading of 18 vehicles that were predominantly trucks, most of which were in the 10-15 ton range. There are some remaining minor issues that are being addressed at the facility”, the release said.
The Ministry noted in the release that the structure it took over was already built, and it was not involved in the design phase or the construction of the facility.
“However, all of the repair works undertaken were done with the intention of strengthening crucial areas, making it compatible with the vessels that ply the area.
“The original plan did not account for several key characteristics of the vessels that would have directly necessitated a change in the design of critical components of the stelling and did not take into account key factors of the environment, further compounding the fact that it was poorly executed.
“Public Works engineers are as a result faced with a series of significant technical limitations that are directly inherited from the original design, two of which are that the current system can only accommodate a maximum load of 16 tons and vessels that ply the Essequibo route can only utilize the facility during a specific window as far as tidal conditions are concerned, the Ministry advised.”
The stelling is the subject of a major controversy over who should be held accountable for the bungled work. The stelling should have been in operation since last year.
