Dear Editor,
I wrote several letters about the deplorable state of Agriculture Road last year but it seems to be falling on deaf ears and this road continues to deteriorate daily. Last year, Project Engineer at the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Anthony A. Haynes, announced some road works from the beginning of Agriculture Road.
According to his letter published in reply to my letter dated August 4th, 2017 he said the following.
‘’For the benefit of the Reverend and the general public, please be informed that the rehabilitation of Agriculture Road, Mon Repos/Triumph, is being undertaken by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure under its Miscellaneous Roads Programme, 2017. The Contractor is K.P. Thomas and Sons Incorporated, the Project Engineer is Anthony A. Haynes, the contract sum is $59,031,149 and the site extends a distance of approximately 1230m. Carriageway works include the upgrading of the road structure with mixed loam and/or crusher run and sealing using asphaltic concrete. The contract is scheduled to end in September of 2017.’’
As I mentioned before, the work executed for about 800 meters, he claimed it was 1230 meters, cannot cost $59,031,149 or even if his 1230 meters was correct to just dig out bad, broken concrete and fill it with ‘crusher- run’ and roll it over with asphalt cannot cost that sum.
My concern was this contractor graded from the beginning of Agriculture Road to NAREI, that’s approximately 3000 meters but only completed 1230 meters from his own words: why did he not complete the remaining 1770 meters of deplorable road full of potholes. He even went away with his machinery after he dug up the road and left it, it was when I wrote a second letter he returned to complete the work of 1230 meters. I am calling on the Auditor General’s Office to carry out an audit of the $59,031,149 that was spent on the job on Agriculture Road that is still incomplete.
Not long ago, I was sitting by a friend who lives near the roadway in Agriculture Road, I heard a sudden sound like a bomb and my friend and I rushed to the scene. A young lady was driving her RAVA vehicle, her tyre was punctured in a very deep pothole and her vehicle skidded around and hit a parked truck and was severely damaged. The young lady fainted as we dragged her out her vehicle. Her vehicle sustained over one million dollars in damage all because of a pothole that nearly cost her her life.
Potholes are all over this road just after Block CC going to NAREI. If you are not familiar with these potholes while driving you can crash easily into another vehicle or land yourself into the trench. I saw two such incidents already. This is a road that has the Guyana School of Agriculture and NAREI but it’s an eyesore to this area and nation as a whole. It’s only when the Minister of Agriculture or the President is coming to the School the administrators will get the students to patch the holes with sand. I believe they all should be fired because they can’t even use their machinery to even throw in some brick to patch these holes. Here are a few pictures of this road:
I am calling on the Hon.Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder and the Hon.Minister David Patterson of Public Infrastructure to come into Agriculture Road to see the deplorable state of this road. This road needs urgent repairs and many of these business structures that occupy the roadway to do business on the Government reserves should be removed. The trench on the right hand side needs urgent digging but many of these illegal businesses on the government reserves hinder the hymacs from executing these works. Something ought to be done urgently on this road.
Yours faithfully,
Reverend Gideon Cecil
