Instead of asphalt, the government has decided to replace flood-prone community roads with concrete. As such, it has provided contracts to residents of those communities, in a process aimed at not only helping them generate funds, but build capacity to bid on other projects, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill has said.
The Ministry of Public Works has rolled out the programme, which will be the guide for residents who bid to build concrete roads and other labour-intensive projects, to assist communities and build capacity for the expanding construction and infrastructure sector.
It is a decision which the government believes will enable taxpayers to get value for money and at the same time be able to do real-time assessments on projects through village scrutiny.
“Most of the community-based contracts are contracts that are really concrete roads which don’t require the same level of expertise, machinery, and engineering skills like when you are doing an asphaltic road. This is what you call labour-intensive work,” Edghill told the Stabroek News last Thurs-day, as he gave an insight into the projects and work being undertaken.
“The engineers from the Ministry of Public Works will have to work with those communities. It is basically putting in the forms, putting in the palls, getting the levels and pouring concrete of a particular specification, so that we can get the required PSI [pounds per square inch], which is about 3,000 to 4,000, depending on where the road is built,” he explained.
Pointing to areas where the initiative has been rolled out, such as in Albouystown, Buxton, Melanie, Linden and Matthew’s Ridge among others, he said that taxpayers can rest assured that they will be getting value for money.
“Are we getting value for money? The answer is, yes! How do I know we are? The entire country can be assured that the Minis-try of Public Works has its own lab for testing. So whether it is a concrete or a concrete and asphaltic road… our lab personnel go out and test to ensure that, if it is asphaltic, the required depth of sand, loam, stone, and asphalt is applied. And if it is a concrete road, we do the mix design and we test it after it is also cast. We have not had any problems with that [to date],” he added.
“It is simple. You tell the contractor, in order for you to get the required mix, you have to mix so much sand, so much stone, so much cement, and your moisture content has to be of a particular standard to do the mix, and we guide them,” he said, explaining the process by which the ministry goes into the communities to assist residents in carrying out the projects.
Edghill said that in that way, capacity and experience are being built and participants can use that as their experience for other contracts. He reasoned that many skilled people with startup companies are asked for experience when they bid for contracts. He said that if they are not allowed to build capacity as they undertake jobs, then they would remain as not having the experience.
He was quick to point out that the projects are all under $15 million for the budding contractors.
“We have broken up these projects into lots. Some of them are $15 million, $14, $3 million and so on and so forth… all at manageable scales. You are not putting out first-time contractors to go and do a $268 million road or a $300 million project. No! That is not what is happening here. This is starting people out, building their capacity, getting their feet wet. And from their profits, they will be able to start getting machinery and other things to do the middle-scale jobs and eventually the high-scale jobs. I think every Guyanese should be proud of this,” he said.
The contracts are not awarded in a politically biased way either, Edghill posited, as he related that when his ministry goes into communities, they get the pool of interested people together without asking about political affiliation, since people from all parties pay taxes.
“You go to a community and you invite all the contractors. They come to a meeting. They bring in documents. Those that don’t have all, we guide them in getting their GRA compliance, NIS compliances and so on. From among that pool, we give them the bidding documents for them to put in their proposals. It is evaluated, it receives the no-objections and then awarded. It is the same thing we did in Linden,” he said.
“In Linden, we had around 49 lots and 80 plus persons who brought in their documents, went through the training how to produce a successful bid; what would be required. We explained to them what the process is all about, making sure all of the persons who are bidding understand how to execute that work. So, the ministry, in an affirmative approach, has been helping to build the capacity of local contractors. We have been helping them to resolve the issues that some of them would have had.”
And with many areas in the country prone to flooding during the rainy season, which would in turn see the erosion of the asphaltic roads, Edghill said, from engineers’ recommendations, a decision was made to replace or build many of the community roads with concrete, which has more durability under water.
“We are doing asphaltic concrete roads in specific areas where drainage is adequate. Because if you do asphaltic concrete roads and there is not proper drainage, the entire road will be undermined. In areas where we have challenges, for example the entire Crabwood Creek area where those people were walking in the mud, we built concrete roads and footpaths. Now they can better manage the floods,” Edghill said.
“The reinforced concrete holds better. It is a bit more expensive as compared with asphaltic concrete but the maintaining in the long run is very, very good and much better for the communities.”
