Dear Editor,
The bridges and culverts which span the many drains and canals that cut across the major highways in Guyana’s coastal plain are being rehabilitated in a programme to improve the quality of the country’s road network and reduce travel time and transport costs, according to the IDB website.
In an infrastructure such as Guyana’s the most technically sound EcoGreen plan with the appropriate cost should be championed as the winner of tenders.
The $33.1 million IDB loan to improve Georgetown’s roads are overdue by about 30 years and the quality of road contractors and criteria for winning bids also needs upgrading. This is the description of what has to be done: The IDB-backed programme, which includes resources to strengthen the executing agency, the Ministry of Public Works, is expected to enhance urban and suburban mobility and safety by reducing travel times, vehicle operation costs and accidents along key roads such as the Sheriff Street-Mandela Avenue corridor, which crosses the city.
The bulk of the programme’s resources will finance civil works to rehabilitate, improve, expand or construct roads and streets; rehabilitate bridges and culverts; build sidewalks, bicycle paths and bus stops; widen road shoulders and incorporate parking lanes and other features that will help traffic flow more easily and increase safety for pedestrians and cyclists, including medians, traffic lights and road signage.
The programme will also finance a comprehensive study of urban transport in and around Georgetown. Besides diagnosing current and projected traffic conditions, trends and problems, the study will make specific recommendations on options to allocate road space more efficiently among users, and promote the use of cleaner and more sustainable modes of transportation, such as buses and bicycles.
In addition, the programme will support the design of a road safety action plan that will diagnose the current situation, and identify key risks and opportunities for improvements that will help bring down traffic accidents and fatalities.
The IDB financing consists of $33.1 million, with a 30–year amortization period, a 5½-year grace period and a Libor-based interest rate, and $33.1 million, with 40-year bullet repayment and a fixed annual interest rate of 0.25 per cent. The Guyanese government will contribute $3 million to the programme’s budget to finance routine maintenance of main roads and safety features, such as signage and line markings. So will we get more of the same or will the most technical team win this tender?
It seems that anyone with influence and money to buy a few trucks and some cheap labourers are graded as certified road builders, and this is one half of the problem; the other half is the below-standard criteria accepted or given by the government engineer or the person in charge of that administration; this can be found in all aspects of construction in Guyana. It is basically profits before quality and the people are tired of this.
The problem is widespread, from the cheap labour that they employ, most of whom have no idea of concrete mixture and cannot read the specifications if given, and left alone are not given modern instruments to do these tasks. Added to this I doubt that there is a masonry school to train the young adults to the standards of the United States, the Middle East or Europe; the same can be said of the contractors who get these bids. The major fault ends with the city engineers who accept the lowest bids without first looking at the materials, technical plan and experience of the bidder.
Are the roads built to the international standards needed for a growing populace and ever increasing traffic and the mining industry’s heavy equipment? In the USA the rural standard for typical roads is that they will not crack or split regardless of weather conditions from extreme heat to subzero temperatures. Typical roads (asphalt and concrete) require approximately 6” to 12” of crushed aggregate as a base, then the sub-layer of asphalt or concrete and a top layer of asphalt or concrete; these are roads built with the future in mind.
Are we considering the growing numbers of bicycles? Are lanes thought of so that they can be safe from speeding cars? Is the stabilization of the wings and trenches being thought of seeing this is one factor for the cracking and side support of all roads? Are EcoGreen systems being considered and are restrictions being given to home builders who build their homes too close to major throughways? Will the city engineer choose lowest bid over quality, and what is his rationale? And will he make public to qualified independent peers, business leaders, the mayor and contractors, before declaring the winner? Or will he or she act as usual? Have we any pride left? Saying this it’s imperative that we have pride in what we do, the city engineer should say to himself in my tenure and with high standards such and such road still stands perfect 20 years after
construction, and so should the contractor and every worker. If there is no pride there will be low standards and mediocrity such as we presently have in every bridge, road and home that Guyanese use.
Mass stabilisation is a fast and cost-effective method for hardening soft ground by adding binder to the soil. Different types of clay, peat, slurry and other soft ground materials can be transformed into a solid layer by using the mass stabilisation method.
This method can also be used for processing and encapsulating contaminated materials. It seems as if there are no long term plans available; every great nation started with great infrastructure, mainly roads and railways, so where is ours? As educated humans the trend is to act and copy the good things of proven nations and to stay away from the vile things of these same nations, but in Guyana we do the opposite – the Big Lime, music concerts, lewd advertising on TV, carjacking and fornication are what we copying, and I am yet to find one person to show the positive side of music, imbibing alcohol and sex before marriage.
We are building a hydro plant while the educational level of the populace is lower than their wages; no entrepreneurship of international standard will be able to utilize the hydroelectric plant being built to start factories and new business by Guyanese, all because of the lack of new knowledge. It will be left to the foreigners being the owners and the Guyanese people being the toilers, and only 1% of the Guyanese wealthy will have any place in our country. This is not development but profound ignorance on our leaders‘ part.
Do we want our country to be like the slums of Brazil or Panama or France where only the Europeans have wealth and the poor’s reaction to poverty is drugs and crime to make a living, and to keep the poor quiet more Big Limes and Fun festivals are laid on, then back to misery in the morning?
We must form alliances with engineering companies and universities in Germany, Finland, Sweden and the like, start schools here as part of joint ventures with no crookedness attached, and we must start adult education classes in every district and neighbourhood, with business classes and the like, and stay away from the Chinese loans and builders if we are looking for quality. It will take sacrifice, but the thought patterns of the lowest and highest in our society have to change now, not tomorrow. On my last visit the Ghana West Africa in 2007 we looked at the construction of Chinese built roads. While they improved what they found they were not international standard and they did not allow the local workers to learn any of the skills needed to maintain the roads, as they used Chinese labour only. This makes the country entirely dependent on Chinese know-how, and this is not a wise move for any under-skilled country.
The Chinese build roads in China to international standards while sometimes building substandard roads and plants in other countries.
Yours faithfully,
Gregory A Thomas
President
Rutherford Holdings Inc
