Local authorities are preparing for a showdown over roads under construction in the Amelia’s Ward housing scheme, in Linden, which bear signs of major defects.
Chairman of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) for the Linden Township Orin Gordon has vowed that the municipality will resist any attempt by contractors to hand over the roads in their present state, which he denounced as offensive. “This is an insult to us as representatives of the people of this town and a direct insult especially to those people who are building and will soon be building their homes here,” said Gordon, referring to both local residents and returning nationals who have been constructing their homes in the scheme.
The road works, which began in October of last year, were scheduled to be completed in December. However, to date the works are less than 80% complete, although a foreman on the ground said that they were nearing completion.
A recent visit to Phase Three of the Amelia’s Ward extension project revealed evidence of the defects in the works. A contract in the sum of $300M was awarded in three parts to two contractors; for Lots 1 and 3, Resat Contracting was responsible for 3.2km and 3.3km of new roads respectively, while Dalip Contracting was responsible for 3.4km of the roads. Although they were contracted to construct asphalt and sand sealed roads, some of the finished roads do not bear evidence of the specifications.
Region 10 Chairman Sharma Solomon said he was able to pick up parts of the road surface, which should have been sand sealed. “This is what they want to give us as road, this thing where you can walk on it ripping way and y’all heel going through. This can’t be,” an outraged Solomon exclaimed.
Compounding the situation was the absence of drains along the roads, which instead have ‘soakaways.’ “How meh good God, how you gon build roads with soakaways in an area like this? This is a residential area, a place where homes will be built and you putting soakaways?” Gordon lamented, while noting that the soakaways have already started to fail. Some run-off water could be seen bypassing the soakaways and accumulating on the roads. In other instances, water in the soakaways is stagnant while in some the laterite has started to form a thick layer in the structure. Some showed signs of the erosion and some have started to crumble.
The mixture of sand and laterite that is being used by the contractors was also pointed out. It was noted that rather than fetching clean white sand from a pit, the contractors are using the dirty dark sand from the construction site, which this newspaper witnessed first-hand. Attempts to contact either of the contractors were futile, while there were no signboards mounted at the project sites with details of the sponsors and contractors.
‘Review’
Both Gordon and Solomon said they had not been privy to any information about the construction works. “All we see is they come in here and start working. We don’t have any information whatsoever about this project,” Gordon said, while adding that several attempts to secure details of the works have been unsuccessful.
“We intend to bring out our entire works committee and the relevant personnel from the works department to have them look at this work and send a report calling for a complete review of this project,” Solomon, meanwhile, added.
While the construction works are ongoing for Phase Three of the extension, it was noted that the Phase Two works have been incomplete for more than two years. “Its puzzling how they can skip the completion of Phase Two and jump to Phase Three and is some of the same contractors that were doing Phase Two now doing Phase Three,” Gordon said. At the same time, Solomon estimated that the roads constructed so far at phases Two and Three at Amelia’s Ward are worse than those done some years ago at Block 22 Wismar, Linden, which are currently virtually impassable.
Amelia’s Ward residents complained bitterly to this newspaper about the state of the roads in Phase Two of the extension, while noting that when it rains the roads are very slushy and during the dry seasons they are rough and dusty. “I don’t know what sort of mathematics they using but I can’t see how they ain’t complete over here and they gone on that side. It make no sense,” said one resident. Another added, “it’s sad because all the doing is fuh seh how much millions deh spend on here and there and it’s all bull they doing with we taxpayers’ dollars.”
Gordon was adamant that should an attempt be made to hand over the roads in their present state to the Linden municipality, it would refuse. “At the end of the day, it’s we the Town Council the people are going to be looking at for the maintenance of these roads and we are not prepared to take them over in this present state,” he said.
