Four months after its commissioning, just over 200 feet of the recently refurbished and upgraded Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara road has had to undergo repairs after developing large cracks and depressions.
When Stabroek News visited the area on Wednesday, significant works had already started on the section, which residents said have been ongoing for more than two weeks.
“They come and they dig out the section and done do nuff work on it. I think they just have to pave it back over now but before it was bad, bad,” one resident, who identified himself as Smith related.
The man explained that large cracks running intermittently across the section, along with depressions and other structural faults had started developing approximately three months ago.
“It start small as usual, like it does with all these roads. First with lil’ cracks and lil’ holes and then like all of a sudden it just get so worse that people start refusing to drive on it. So for that period of time it went like that, people just used to divert from it, which used to cause some problems with the traffic on the other lanes but nothing serious ever happen. We just glad that they fixing it and it doesn’t happen again,” the man added.
When contacted on Wednesday, head of the Ministry of Public Infra-structure’s (MPI) Work Services Group, Geoffrey Vaughn, confirmed that repair works were being done on the section by one of the contractors, BK International, as part of the defects liability period that is enshrined in the contract.
Vaughn also noted that the repair work is not serious and noted that even if it was, the contractor would still be obligated to do the repair works. He added that, “these things do happen.”
The West Demerara road expansion project was financed by the Government of Guyana, together with the Caribbean Development Bank to the tune of US$44.3 million. The project saw the rehabilitation and expansion of approximately 30.7 km of road from Vreed-en-Hoop to Hydronie and also involved the replacement and repair of bridges.
Road safety works, inclusive of pavement markings and safety barriers along severe curves were also done, as well as pedestrian and cycle lanes developed. The upgraded road was officially commissioned on July 11th of this year.
The construction project was carried out by local construction company BK International, as well as Jamaican engineering company, Surrey Paving and Aggregate.
