Facing a fuel shortage in Region Nine due to a collapsed bridge, the Rupununi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) has reiterated its call for an improved maintenance regime for the Linden-Lethem road.
“Every time they fix a bridge, you don’t really have confidence that it will last for any period,” President of the RCCI Daniel Gajie told Stabroek News yesterday. He called on Minister of Transport and Hydraulics Robeson Benn and the works engineers to pay more attention to the design and maintenance of the roadway. Benn could not be contacted by Stabroek News yesterday.
Up to yesterday afternoon, the bridge, located some 20 miles from Kurupukari at a location referred to by commuters as Frenchman Turn, was still being fixed and fuel trucks had not arrived in Lethem. According to bus operators, that section had been deteriorating for a while now. “It started way before but it wasn’t that bad,” an official at the GuyBraz Bus Service said. He said it was fixed several times but the deterioration continued.
Benn on Friday had told Stabroek News that the foundation of the bridge had washed away. Light vehicles such as minibuses are continuing to pass but passengers have to disembark. The minister said that the bridge would have been fixed by yesterday. He had said that he had received a phone call from the Lethem Power Company informing him that it only had one day’s fuel remaining and that trucks with fuel were stalled at the broken bridge.
Work was still continuing late yesterday, according to several bus operators. They said that there was material at the site. It was explained that there are two periods: 3 am and 8 am when traffic is heaviest and then the contractors would have virtually the entire day with barely any traffic to do their work. Heavy rains contributed to the deterioration of the bridge, Stabroek News was told.
Meantime, Gajie was skeptical that the bridge would be fixed by yesterday. Since Wednesday, no fuel had arrived in the border community and the power house and gas stations were waiting, he said, while adding that the situation is affecting the community. He said more attention needs to be paid to the maintenance regime of the road.
“The road has not been properly maintained for over three years,” the RCCI president said. “The quality of work is very poor,” he added. Gajie said that there needs to be a regular maintenance programme with quality work done and called for a comprehensive work programme in 2014. “The top-up specifications is not working,” he said adding that they were dissatisfied with the entire maintenance programme. As soon as it rains, the road deteriorates, he asserted.
In September, the RCCI had called for more regular and improved maintenance of the road to cope with the increase in heavy traffic. Gajie had told Stabroek News that over the past four years the volume and type of traffic has increased with larger trucks with heavier loads now traversing the long, laterite trail regularly.
Despite this, he had said, there has not been an improvement in the number of times that maintenance of the road is carried out with this usually being done once a year. In addition, there has not been an improvement in the quality of the maintenance works with workers using the same method they did five years ago with the gravel just being scattered on the road and no grading done.
The RCCI president had also said that there is no effort to improve the types of bridges, and maintenance of these wooden structures is usually done only once a year as well. He declared that the chamber wants an increase in the maintenance being carried out on the road as well as an improvement in the quality of the work done, including more gravelling and compacting.
There have been many calls over the past years for the Linden-Lethem road to be upgraded. During the rainy season, it has oftentimes deteriorated greatly.
