Dear Editor,
We are a poor country with limited financial resources. Our main source of foreign income, the mining industry, is foundering and in dire need of some infrastructural development to boost exploration and find new mineral deposits. Very little is being done to develop this infrastructure, presumably due to the exorbitant costs.
So why, when there are more urgent roads needed in other locations, does our government continue to fund the Amaila road which does not even have an investor at the moment? What happens if the project completely falls through (if it hasn’t already fallen through) and another site is identified? What happens to this road and the billions spent on it?
For a country that needs so much road infrastructure and so has little money, it seems highly improper to continue to spend our limited dollars on such a road when there is no obvious benefit for it. Even the sections already completed, and which may provide access to the inaccessible mining areas along the Kuribrong, are being denied use by the public.
The GT-Lethem ‘international’ road is deteriorating at a rapid rate. The Bartica-Sherima road was recently in the news because of its deteriorated state. Likewise the Mahdia road. There are other similarly important hinterland roads that are crumbling before our eyes with little being done to maintain them, presumably due to lack of adequate funds.
Yet, here we are, spending billions of dollars on a road to nowhere at the moment. Something has to be wrong with such a rationale.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
