With the deadline for the completion of the $3.6 billion Hope Canal fast approaching, Courtney Benn Contracting Services Ltd (CBCSL), the contractor responsible for the high level outfall sluice, which is way behind schedule, is making arrangements to speed up the work but no sub-contracting as urged has been done as yet.
The Ministry of Agriculture met the contractor again on Friday to discuss how to speed up the work, Chief Executive Officer of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) Lionel Wordsworth told Stabroek News.
Up to last week, the high level outfall sluice was only 47% completed and it is unlikely that the project will meet the December 31 completion deadline.
“Arrangements are being made” for the speeding up of the work, Wordsworth said, while noting that several options were discussed. The NDIA head said that the contractor can increase his workforce, schedule work concurrently or sub-contract. Sub-contracting had been one of the options raised previously but CBCSL has not moved towards this as yet.
Wordsworth said that a schedule for the speeding up of the work has been drawn up, including aspects of the project that can be done concurrently. On Tuesday, casting will be done as the contractor moves ahead with the work, he said.
Conceived following the Great Flood of 2005, the controversial Hope Canal project will drain water from the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) into the Atlantic Ocean, thereby eliminating the flooding of the Mahaica Creek and its environs. Currently, when the water reaches a high level in the EDWC, water is drained through the Maduni and Lama sluices into the Mahaica creek, resulting in overtopping and flooding in a vast area of inhabited communities.
Construction on the project started in February 2011, with an estimated 18 months for completion. However, the June 30 deadline was pushed down to August 31 and then later to December 31. It has four components: the Northern Relief channel which on completion will be 10.3km in length, from the sea defence embankment and extending to the EDWC, a high level outfall sluice, a conservancy head regulator and a public bridge being constructed at the Hope section.
Last week, Wordsworth told Stabroek News that the NDIA was not optimistic that the eight-door high level discharge sluice will be completed by the extended contract period of December 31, 2013.
He emphasized that the deadline remains unchanged and said that the NDIA and the consultants have been in discussion with the contractor for that component, CBCSL, to adopt sub-contracting methodology “which will allow for a large quantity work to take place concurrently and will see the project completion within the shortest possible time.”
