| – says Regional Chairman“You can’t just draw drown a tranche of the money and haven’t started the work as yet; that is not fair to us and we are going to get serious with them”.By Leon SuseranSeveral contractors in Berbice will be penalized for not advancing road works under contracts they were awarded since last year. Work has not started on many of the roads which should have been completed by the end of March.And Region Six Chairman, Mr. David Armogan has vented his dissatisfaction with several contractors in the region who were paid since last year for road works across the Berbice area—works that were supposed to have been well underway since the fifth month of this year is approaching—but who are lagging behind. Legal action, he hinted,Cheap Adidas NHL Jerseys, is the next step under procedures and is being explored by the government.Many of these defaulting contractors have been written to “telling them that we will enforce the liability—if you don’t perform within a certain period of time, then we can implement penalties—and we are going to move in that direction.”While acknowledging that not all the contractors are defaulting in the work,Andrew Franks Dolphins Jersey, the ones that are lagging behind makes the situation look bad. “You can’t just draw down a tranche of the money and haven’t started the work as yet; that is not fair to us and we are going to get serious with them.”Armogan acknowledged that there is a shortage of stone and crusher-run in the local market at the moment but this, he stated, is no excuse for the road contractors “becoming extremely slow” with the execution of road works.He believes that the contractors can execute preparatory works in the meantime, but this is not happening. And the May-June rains seem to be here.“Besides the shortage, some of these contractors are extremely slow and even though they can do other preparatory work, they have not gone in to do these kinds of things.”The final stage of road works has to be done with crusher run and stones, but Armogan is saying that instead of sitting back and waiting for availability of stone and crusher-run,Cheap NFL Jerseys Free Shipping, the contractors should do preparatory work on the roads in the meantime… ”go there and fill it [the roads] with sand and so on and have the compaction done until you get the other types of materials, but some of them haven’t even gone to see the place.”He is worried that now that the rains are here, the works can be further delayed. The Region Six budget has been passed in the Parliament and the Chairman has said that “we are going to begin almost immediately to roll out all the capital works in the region and some of these contractors who have works since last year and haven’t started I don’t know what they will do because we can’t give them additional work.”As a result, Armogan has envisaged that there will be a shortage of contractors in the region to execute works under the 2013 capital work programme and as such,Cheap Jerseys From China, more contractors will have to be outsourced from Region Five and elsewhere.“We will have discussions with our principals in Georgetown to enforce the liability clause and some of them will have to pay a lot of money,holesale Soccer Jerseys, if it comes to that,” he stated.East Bank Berbice RoadThe Chairman said that $12M will be released from the Region Six funds to do remedial works on the dilapidated East Bank Berbice thoroughfare “because that road should have been budgeted for by the Public Works Ministry.”The Works Ministry, he stated, will “see what they can get—I understand they already pledged $12M but I will wait to see if they will have some more.”Negotiations have been advanced with the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB) for the project which will cost US$7M. “It is a very costly exercise.”“We have to get funding from the IDB. The discussions are at an advanced stage and they have a lot of criteria such as feasibility studies and as soon as they can disburse those funds which might be during the first quarter of next year, the road can be done in the way people want it to be done”.Armogan acknowledged that the East Bank Berbice roadway has reached a stage where remedial works have become quite ineffective,WBC Jerseys 2017, “and it is not standing up—it’s so bad that the foundation has gone almost completely”. |
