Derelict vehicles for destruction at Kururu

A  5.5 kilometres road will soon be built at Kururu on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway in Region 4, paving the way for access to a site designated to destroy old and derelict vehicles and for the overall use of residents in the community.

“This particular project will serve for two purposes, one for the community and two …access to a facility that destroys derelict vehicles,” Minister within the Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MPI), Annette Ferguson, told Stabroek News yesterday.

With the procuring entity being MPI, an invitation for bids for the contract to clear lands and build the road, stretching 5.5 km in the Kururu community, was yesterday advertised in the Kaieteur News.

Ferguson explained that the vehicle destruction facility serves as part of the Guyana Restoration Pro-ject; an APNU+AFC Government project initiative aimed at the Rehabilitation, Restoration and Renewal of Guyana.

“Well you know we are trying to restore George-town and you would have seen sometime last year we would have started clearing all the derelict vehicles from the verge of the road shoulders…the restoration of Georgetown project is to beautify Georgetown…” the minister said.

A car crusher, estimated to cost $42m, to dispose of derelict vehicles has also been procured by the Pub-lic Infrastructure Ministry.

The Ministry had also advertised for the supply, delivery, installation and commissioning of a 120-tonne Electronic Truck Scale. The engineer’s estimate for that machine is $5m.

Chairman of the National Task Force Com-mission (NTFC), Major General (rtd) Joseph Singh, has said that the Restore Guyana project was not just a clean-up for the country’s 50th anniversary or for Christmas but is aimed at transforming the culture and behaviour of citizens.

Singh has also explained that the restoration project was divided into six goals and areas of concern, which are all long term and will see the country make a permanent change in addressing issues such as pollution, and congestion. The six goals include: drainage; sustainable urban, rural, and hinterland physical rehabilitation; solid waste management; welfare management of the homeless, addicts, and mentally unstable; rebranding Guyana through the restoration of ethical and social responsibility; and public and stakeholders consultations.

“We will require a revolutionary transformation of us, the individuals, our homes and communities,” he asserted.

Singh told Stabroek News that the NTFC’s life is expected to last until 2020. And he also noted that at that point in time “Once the structures are established then there ought not to be a need for a National Task Force Commission because by definition the work to address these areas of concern would be efficiently executed, one would hope, by those agencies that are tasked with that responsibility.”