By: Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 20th April 2018)– Chief Engineer at the Public Works Department George Gilbert says phase one of the Rehabilitation of the island main road project –estimated at $6 million- involving local contractors is scheduled to begin shortly.
He made the disclosure during a media chit-chat immediately following a meeting hosted by his Department to interact with stakeholders of the project including contractors and members of the business community held on Thursday 19th April at the Old Girls School located on Victoria Road.
Gilbert informed of a two weeks timeframe for the ground work to start.
He added: “We are going to start from the airport roundabout there going back to Keys. That’s going to be one of the first starting area. Then we are going to start [in Camps village] by Best Buy. There is a drainage issue on the opposite of Best Buy, we are going to take care of that so that will be started shortly also.
Earlier this month, an official contract signing ceremony for five (5) local contractors participating in the Special Capital Road Projects was held at the airport roundabout.
Those businesses are Allie Construction, Boonies Construction, B&B Ltd., Huggins and Son Construction and O’Loughlin Construction while ADeB Consultants Limited (of Jamaica) is also involved.
Asked by this reporter about the confidence level in regard to the local contractors, he commented: “Well I think all of them are excited, motivated and Public Works and the consultants would work closely with them to ensure that they give us quality work and work which will be done in a timely manner.”
Gilbert gave details of the work done in the project planning and highlighted what would be done to tackle challenges.
“There was a previous study done where what was done, we actually went through the island’s main road- picked up the potholes, all of the low points, all of the areas that lack infrastructure such as sidewalks which were required and we actually noted them then we went back and did an analysis. We even had a drone here flying over to help us in picking up the information.”
He continued: “What we intend to do is to work closely with the contractors so what we would do is to identify the problems before they occur and ask the contractors that whenever they perceive that there will be a delay that they inform us and we will see how best we can mitigate against those delays.”
In relation to the work approach in light of the upcoming hurricane season (June to November), the Public Works Department official said: “After we start the work, we will review the work as we go along and if we find that there will be any delays, we will ask the contractors to speed up overtime and maybe on the weekends and maybe to even increase the number of workforce.”
