By Joseph Allen
Eighteen months after a massive contract was signed, dredging of the Pomeroon River in Region Two is yet to be finished and the contractor has deemed the task more complex than had been anticipated.
On April 12, 2022, the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) under the Ministry of Agriculture signed a $569,300,000 contract with Gaico Construction and General Services Inc for the dredging of the mouth of the Pomeroon River.
The project was signed since for years farmers from villages along the river had been plagued by inadequate drainage due to extreme siltation at its mouth.
As such, the aim of the project once completed is to have better drainage on farms and vessels will have better access to the river during both the low and high tides.
The project was to have been completed around September last year and this was then pushed back to February this year.
As of this month, the project is yet to be completed and no explanation has been issued by the NDIA or the Ministry of Agriculture. Observers say this is yet another major public works contract signed by the government that has encountered problems.
Chief Executive Officer of Gaico Construction, Komal Singh when contacted by Stabroek News acknowledged that there was a timeline however he said that there was a delay due to the fact that the project was not done with an understanding of its full complexity.
“There was a timeline to the project but the project was never done in detail to understand the full complexity of the project. So, this is just a continuation of the project”, he said.
Singh said that as of now works have been halted but they will resume soon.
“…We were able to cut the channel using the backhoe operation. We will be mobilizing shortly to go back into work on phase two with the cutter head which is now going to be able to go deeper and wider. Hopefully, by a month, we should be back in there with a cutter head”, he told Stabroek News.
When work commences again, Singh added that a wider basin will be done.
“When we doing the cutting, we are doing a wider basin from what we were initially going and do”, Singh said.
Not meeting
Chair of the Region Two council, Vilma Desilva when contacted noted that the company continues to give deadlines which it is not meeting.
“What they told us is that they had to create a channel where they had to use the long boom excavators, which they did and after they created the channel that is when they will bring in the dredge. So, the machines are still there parked at the mouth and we are still awaiting the dredge. So, I have to get an update on time because they have committed every time you call in two weeks and that is the most I can’t say”, she told Stabroek News.
Desilva said that she is hoping that in the meeting she has with the company this week there will be some satisfactory explanation.
In August last year, Stabroek News also questioned the company about the progress of the project. It was noted then by Singh that works along the river mouth had progressed approximately “quarter way”.
It was noted by him that the mouth of the river is extremely shallow with a draught of just one metre. It was explained by the company that for 20 years dredging works had not been done and a hydrographic survey was done where it found that the river is over 16 to 18 feet deep, but at the mouth, there is heavy siltation.
In January of this year, Singh said dredging along the Pomeroon should be completed in a month’s time as work on the last two miles was then underway.
