Dear Editor,
While on my way back from Supenaam on Saturday, January 24, I saw a crowd of people on the public road at Vilvoorden on the Essequibo Coast. I thought it was an accident, and since the residents was waving for my car to stop, I told my driver to pull over to the side of the road. The residents then told me to look across the trench and see the newly constructed street there. I then had a closer look at the street which I assumed had cost millions of dollars. The mud shoulders and loam of the street had washed away into the trench; the approach from the main public road to enter the street had caved in; and the drainage pipes and small concrete culvert were blocked up with the loam from the street. The material which had been used to surface the street did not have the 60×40 requirements of sand and loam; there was no compaction, it was a shoddy and substandard street.
These residents from Vilvoorden had waited for decades to have a good street. They lived on an old estate which was once owned by two Chinese sisters next to some rice fields. They told me that when the rain falls it is impossible for them and their children to come out of the newly constructed street to the main public road. This substandard street was built under the watchful eyes of the Chairman and councillors of the Good Hope/Pomona NDC and the Regional Democratic Council of Region Two.
I remember that this same contractor had built another street in Anna Regina with tar and sand which were washed away with overnight rain at a cost of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, and no penalty was imposed on him, not even being blacklisted. Most of the streets and roads built by this contractor are substandard and do not last for 6 months. The taxpayers are questioning why he continues to be given contracts by the Regional Tender Board.
One contractor told me that bribes were involved in the securing of contracts, which is why the contractors have to scale back on the materials and quality of works to make a profit. The residents of Vilvoorden are calling on the President to launch an investigation into the building of this substandard street and the waste of taxpayers’ money.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan