Contractors building the outfall eight-door sluice for the Hope Canal have been given until Friday to submit a plan to address the issues hampering its construction.
According to Agricul-ture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy, the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority, consultants and the contractor will jointly draft a no-cost plan that will rectify the challenges affecting this phase of the project. The ministry will also consider sub-contracts for the sluice, he said, based on a number of decisions taken following the November 16 meeting between agriculture officials and contractors on the project, a report from the Govern-ment Information Agency (GINA) said.
“The meeting agreed that three components of the project; the canal, head regulator and bridge are on track to meet the project’s December 31 deadline, but that the sluice will require additional efforts to get there,” GINA said. The minister had scheduled the meeting with the aim of informing contractors that government had no intention of allowing them to delay the project into 2014.
“I have grave concern about the eight-door sluice at the sea-side. I am not comfortable that progress is being made. We had significant progress made in September and in October, unfortunately many opportunity days in November have been lost and that creates concern for me,” Ramsammy told GINA in a recent interview.
Construction on the project started in February 2011, with an estimated 18 months for completion. However, the August 2013 deadline was pushed down to August 31 and then later to December 31. The project aims to enhance drainage in the agriculture lands in the Mahaica/Mahaicony area. It has four components: a channel which on completion will be 10.3km in length, from the sea defence embankment and extending to the EDWC, a high level sluice outfall structure, a conservancy head regulator and a public bridge being constructed at the Hope section.
