-ministry says it took over ‘inadequate’ facility
President Bharrat Jagdeo has ordered a review of the currently inoperable Supenaam ferry stelling, following charges by the construction company that modifications done by the Ministry of Works led to its current state.
But the Ministry yesterday fired back, saying that its Transport and Harbours Department took over a facility – constructed on behalf of the Ministry of Local Government – “which was inadequate to handle the typical flotation as well as the arrangement to get on to the vessel’s for the heavy truck traffic from the Essequibo.”
In a statement, the Ministry of Public Works and Communications said that it and Minister of Transport and Hydraulics, Robeson Benn, are “frankly astonished” at the statements attributed to BK International in yesterday’s edition of the Stabroek News. “His Excellency, the President, desiring an end to the disputes concerning the new Good Hope/Supenaam Ferry Stelling and its earliest coming into scheduled usage, has requested the Prime Minister to undertake a formal review of this project, particularly in the specific areas of dispute,” Prime Minister Samuel Hinds said in statement yesterday.
He said two engineers will be retained to assist him in the review, which would include recommending remedial modifications in order to bring the $574m stelling into early, regular use.
Construction company BK International built the stelling and on Thursday, the company’s head Brian Tiwari, on a tour of the structure, charged that modifications done by the Works Ministry led to its current unusable state.
Four days after being opened for use, the Pomeroon/Supenaam stelling on Tuesday was forced closed after the end beam of the loading ramp buckled when vehicles were being loaded onto a vessel.
With the modifications said to have compromised the structural integrity of the Region Two stelling, BK emphasised that it had completed the project to the exact design and specifications required of it and it was certified and handed over to the government as a completed project.
Tiwari said in its current state, the stelling is unsafe for use. Company officials said too that during the course of works done by the Ministry, “significant other damage” was done to the structure. “Whatever the Ministry has done here is a wilful act,” Tiwari had charged.
Company officials said that a drawbridge which the Ministry attached to the end of the loading ramp should not have been there as its placement there and consequent lowering onto a docked ship instead of a drawbridge being lowered from a ship onto the loading ramp, would have affected weight distribution and led to the failure of the end beam.
That is what occurred on Tuesday.
Expensive facility
Yesterday, the Public Works Ministry said that it is its view that the failure would have occurred in spite of whether the drawbridge came from the ferry or from the ramp. “The Ministry accepted to bring this expensive facility into use after waiting for a prolonged period for defects to be corrected.
Notwithstanding the modifications, when the facility was put into use serious structural failure occurred on the ‘as-built’ design,” it said. The Ministry said it intends to carry out a complete engineering back analysis of the facility to determine for itself what the Transport and Harbours Department has taken over as a complete structure. It added that legal advice is also being sought “with respect to engaging on press statements attributed to” Tiwari.
Tiwari had accused the Ministry of “wilfully” damaging the structure. “They have damaged this place entirely. I don’t know how we’ll move with this from here because they have brutalized every single thing”, he said. “They put us in a terrible situation here now by coming and mess this whole place up,” he added.
Project Engineer Julian Archer had told reporters that the loading ramp was designed to carry a maximum load of 20 tons. It was explained that in the original design, the linkage between the ramp and the ferry – a drawbridge – would have been on the ferry and released from the vessel onto the ramp. However, the Ministry has attached the drawbridge to the ramp. Archer said that the excessive loading resulted in the structural failure of the end beam. He explained that if the original design was adhered to, namely a drawbridge from the ferry onto the loading ramp instead of the drawbridge from the loading ramp onto the ferry, then the weight would have been distributed evenly and the end beam would not have failed.
Recently the pontoon installed by the Ministry had sunk and sections of the concrete structure sustained damage and this was attributed to a 22- tonne excavator being used to place the second pontoon. Further, one of the attachments that hold the loading ramp to the concrete wharf was loosened. BK’s spokesman Kit Nascimento had said that in the design and specifications of the stelling, the drawbridge was never intended to be attached to the stelling and was always intended to be from the ferry to the stelling. He said after the project was handed over, government sought to modify it. “It can’t work the way that they have now attempted to do it. And the critical thing is why did the government proceed to do work without consulting the contractor, without consulting the designer and without consulting the supervising company. They just proceeded to do the work clearly with insufficient knowledge or understanding,” he had said. “BK International do not understand why the government intervened in the way they did,” he added. “It does not appear to BK to be any sound engineering reason for having intervened in this manner and they were not consulted”, he said calling it “evidence of extremely careless mismanagement and extremely careless engineering work”.
