With a number of deadlines already missed and the likelihood of more cost overruns, the $3.6 billion Hope Canal Project (HCP) was on Friday deemed an unnecessary extravagance by Shadow Minister for Agriculture Dr Rupert Roopnaraine.
During an A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU) press conference on Friday, Roopnaraine said he would be surprised if there are no cost overruns for the project, which had commenced in February 2011 and had been hit by numerous delays.
“Well, this project has been in our view an extravagance from the beginning.
This was not a project that we believed was at all necessary,” Roopnaraine stated. He went on, “What was required to deal with the conservancy was to ensure that the outlets to the Demerara were in order; that the internal arrangements within the conservancy were dealt with, so water will move easily towards the outlets and so on. This is the work that really should have be done for the conservancy.”
Instead, Roopnaraine said, there is an “elaborate canal” and he doubts it can be properly maintained due not only to its size but the government’s track record. “How they are going to maintain seven and eight kilometres of dam is yet to be seen, given their record of maintenance,” he said.
Furthermore, he was unable to estimate just when the HCP will be completed.
According to Roopnaraine, he regularly crosses the Hope Bridge every day and would frequently check to ensure that activity is underway. He admitted that the project seemed closer to finishing that it did a month ago, but he could not say how much longer he believed it would go on.
According to Cabinet Secretary Roger Luncheon, the HCP’s latest deadline of December 31, 2014 was missed due to overrun in costs.
The Government Information Agency (GINA) quoted Luncheon as saying on Wednesday that most of the work is completed and the eight-door sluice, which is to be constructed by Courtney Benn Contracting Ser-vices Limited (CBCSL), is soon to be completed.
However, engineer Charles Sohan, in the January 6, 2015 edition of Stabroek News, noted that the project is far from completion and unlikely to be fully operational for another year or so before flood waters could be safely released from the East Demerara Water Conservancy into the Atlantic Ocean.
There has been no further date given for the completion of the project.
