Dear Editor,
Thanks for revisiting the Pouderoyen Pump Station project site, SN. The worker was obviously speaking the truth, displaying the incompetence of management for all the educated world to see, not the blind government engineer. Let me deal with these excuses.
1. Rainfall? This has been a dry year. Even this rainy season began late and is very poor on the Demerara coast. My weather station recorded very little rain. Only one day was there more than an inch of rainfall.
2. Tides? They are always there, but these contractors are obviously unaware of the existence of tide tables, much less read and understand them. This inability to use tide tables seems also to apply to the Berbice Bridge management, who can’t supply an up-to-date bridge schedule on its website.
3. Fragile condition of the dam? Why take the job when you can’t even read the situation on the ground? Competent contractors who saw that were obviously bypassed.
4. Frayed rope? That is the kind of equipment that incompetent management hands out to exploited workers. Wire ropes are particularly dangerous. They have to be properly inspected and secured.
5. Piles keep cracking? Isn’t it obvious the piles are substandard?
The workers can’t work because they are rightfully frightened for their safety. A responsible government engineer, belonging to an autonomous professional body not overseen by majority government appointees, would have shut it down for even one of the above excuses. Of course, as has been said ad nauseam, the contractor was unqualified. They didn’t know, and still don’t know that they don’t know. The public procurement in this country is flagrantly abysmal.
Sincerely,
Alfred Bhulai
