Despite bad weather, ongoing protests and delays in acquiring land, the $7.5 billion Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway extension to Point Fortin remains on track for its 2015 completion date. According to Works and Infrastructure Minister Dr Surujrattan Rambachan, close to 20 per cent of the 50 kilometres of highway from Golconda to Point Fortin has already been completed.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Berridge Trace Overpass, being built at Mon Desir, Rambachan estimated that drivers would be able to use 50 per cent of the highway at the end of 2014, which, he said, was in keeping with the project’s deadline. “By the end of December 2014, the population will be able to drive on about 50 per cent of the highway...Now, 50 per cent of the highway means driving area, but it does not mean to say only 50 per cent of the work will be completed,” he said.
“Much more work will be completed than 50 per cent, because you have the interchange at Debe that will be completed, you have the interchange to Golconda that will be completed, and other bridges are going to be completed, so the highway is well in progress. “I will say sometime by the end of 2015 the entire project will be completed, which will bring us right where we had targeted.”
Rambachan toured several areas along the route, including the Dunlop Roundabout, where work has begun in Point Fortin, the Mon Desir Interchange and Mosquito Creek where expansion work is being done. The Point Fortin visit was not without contention, as Point Fortin mayor Clyde Paul, accompanied by his deputy Janelle St Hillaire, turned up uninvited to protest Rambachan’s snubbing of the mayor and council.
Paul said it was only when he was driving to work, he noticed the gathering at the Construtora OAS site, that he knew something was going on. “I just wanted to record my displeasure,” Paul told members of the media. “I did not get any invitation and I thought that it was a classless act by the minister to come to Point Fortin, knowing fully well that he was going to deal with the Point Fortin highway as they call it.”
Rambachan, in response, said his presence in Point Fortin was only a site visit and not anything ceremonious. “The Point Fortin mayor was trying to make a spectacle of himself this morning,” he said. Asked if the mayor was invited, Rambachan said: “I don’t know. The communication department invited the Member of Parliament in that area Mr (Fitzgerald) Jeffrey.” When it was pointed out that Paula Gopee-Scoon was the Point Fortin MP and not Fitzgerald Jeffrey, who represents La Brea, Rambachan said: “Well, one of them.”
Paul has made repeated calls for the highway to be built from Point Fortin. However, Rambachan said the work started was not a result of the mayor’s request, but something that had been planned by Nidco since 2011. Rambachan said because of pipelines passing along the highway route, contractor Construtora OAS will build a 660-foot bridge over a field of gas lines which will be the country’s longest.
At the Mon Desir Interchange, Rambachan said the public was unaware of the amount of work that had already been done in the area. The Highway Re-route Movement has sought the intervention of the High Court, to re-route the plans for the Debe to Mon Desir leg of the highway.
However, the site visit showed certain portions ready to be paved and the likelihood that considerable progress would be made by the time the court makes a ruling. Even as he and National Infrastructural Development Company (Nidco) president Dr Carson Charles were being updated on the project, a house stood at the end of the route, blocking further excavation. The house, near Mon Desir Road, Rambachan said, belongs to a member of the highway group who was unwilling to move.
Charles said although Nidco could acquire the house without consent, it was going to work out a deal with the owner. On the issue of flooding at Mosquito Creek, Rambachan denied this was as a result of the highway construction. He said it was a recurring problem caused by a change in tidal patterns. He said the level of the roadway would be elevated to alleviate this problem.