Work on East Bank four-lane expected to speed up

The pace of the construction of the East Bank Demerara four-lane road is expected to improve since the Work Services Group (WSG) of the Ministry of Public Works, with support from the power and telephone companies has been addressing the challenge of utilities relocation hindering the project’s progress.

A release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said that the delays in the multi-million dollar project stemmed from the need for the removal and relocation of public utilities, such as utility poles for power lines and telephone lines, water pipelines and a gas line from within the road project area.

According to General Manager of the WSG, Geoffrey Vaughn, the group is in the final stages of negotiations with the utility companies to resolving these issues.

He said a meeting was held with the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) company last Friday (July 5) and they hope to come to a consensus in terms of timing the removal of the GT&T cables.

Vaughn said the process of removal and relocation of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) poles is moving smoothly. He said that the power company has already removed approximately 90 percent of its poles from the project area.

GINA said that on the issue of the traffic congestion as a result of the project, he said, “most of the time you must realise that some of the issues stem from the amount of vehicles traffic in the area at that time as well.

We know for a fact that they are doing the drains, and there are times when they have materials being transported that slow up traffic, but we are trying our best at the Ministry to ensure those hiccups and those problems are resolved.”

In terms of the actual project itself and the progress that is being made, Vaughn said that it is now seeing some progress in terms of execution.

“There is still some slothfulness in terms of execution, but we are pushing along with the consultants to ensure this project moves a little faster, at a pace where we can see some resolution of the problems and the difficulties, in some instances that the commuters face on a daily basis,” he said.

GINA said that the East Bank Demerara four-lane road expansion project spans about 5.2 kilometres starting from the Guyana National Stadium at Providence, going up to the Diamond intersection. It is being executed in three lots. Lot One from Providence to the Covent Garden Water Treatment Plant is being done by Dipcon Engineering, Lot Two from the Water Treat-ment Plant to Little Diamond by Gaico Construction and from Little Diamond to Diamond Intersection by BK International.

According to Ron Rahaman, Manager of the Roads and Bridges Department, Ministry of Public Works, Lot One is 30 percent completed. He said that the contractor has almost completed the excavation of the drains on the eastern-side of the carriage-way and has already placed 85 percent of the white sand fill. Installation of the drains is about 90 percent completed.

GINA said that Rahaman reported that in certain sections, Dipcon has already started removing the soil charges following the required waiting period. “The six months have elapsed, the contractor is now removing the soil charge and he has commenced the placing of the sub-base material. Once that is successfully completed, he would then go on to the base material which is a cement stabiliser material, and then the road will be asphalted.”

He also said that Dipcon has completed two reinforced concrete culverts and has started the construction of a reinforced concrete bridge.

The concrete drains on the eastern side of the Bougainvillea Housing Scheme are under construction and recently Dipcon has started some concrete works way in the Farm area.

In terms of scheduled completion of this Lot of the project, Rahaman said that this aspect is expected to be completed in the first half of 2014 since there were significant delays in terms of the relocation of utilities …in another month or so the progress of work is expected to pick-up.

GINA said that the progress in Lot 2 is about 38 percent completed. This aspect of the road-expansion is where Gaico is constructing a new carriageway in the cane fields on the eastern side of the East Bank road. Rahaman said that the carriageway is about 70 percent completed.

According to him, the contractor has finished placing the sub-base material and is currently putting preparations in place to install the base material which is a cement stabilised base. Gaico has also started the construction of two reinforced concrete bridges, and once those bridges are completed, the eastern carriageway will be asphalted before the end of this year.

Rahaman admitted that BK International’s work in Lot 3 has been significantly delayed by the utilities relocation issue and progress of work is just about 15 percent completed.

However he said that the contractor has completed all of the excavation, completed putting white sand filling in about 80 percent of the excavation area, and has now started the placement of the sub-base material.

According to GINA, Rahaman identified one of the challenges to this lot as being the construction of the new bridge at Demerara Distillers Limited. He said the construction of this new structure will be one of the challenges that BK International will be faced with in terms of traffic management.

Rahaman also commented on the issue of traffic congestion noting that at this point of the project, the contractors are not doing road works.   “We have done some analysis and what it has shown is that while at this point in time there are minimum delays because of the contractors, what we found is that the hire-cars and the minibuses when they are stopping, they are not stopping off the lane, they are stopping in the lane and it causes everybody to back-up.”

He said the trucks using the roadway are slow moving vehicles and also contribute to the congestion.