Works and Infrastructure minister Dr Surujrattan Rambachan says he has asked for state protection for contractors and workers working on projects in high-risk areas. This is because he had been told contractors were facing violent attacks, kidnapping and acts of extortion. Rambachan made the disclosure yesterday as he announced that he has approached National Security Minister Gary Griffith on the issue in a bid “to utilise the security services to ensure that work continues.”
He was speaking with reporters during a tour of the $28 million Calcutta Bridge project being built at Calcutta No 1, Couva. Rambachan said the ministry had to abandon projects in certain parts of Belmont in the last fiscal year because of violent attacks. “We were paving roads in another area and a contractor had to pay $30,000 to get back his equipment. In another area, I think it was River Estate, I think two contractor employees were kidnapped and he had to pay $64,000 to get back the employees,” he added.
Rambachan pointed to another project in Marabella where the construction of a pavilion was disrupted because contractors were being intimidated with threats of violence. He said in that project some residents who were considered “bad boys” come out regularly with cutlasses and ran the contractors out of the area when they went to the construction site.
“We cannot have this kind of lawlessness prevailing where we are doing jobs to benefit the rest of the population. It is a kind of lawlessness that has to be stopped and Minister Griffith has promised that he is going to be intervening in this regard,” Rambachan said. The minister also said a project in Windsor Park, California, was also proving to be a little problematic for the ministry, as residents of the area had shutdown the project several times.
He said the residents were preventing the ministry from dismantling the bridge in the area although arrangements have been made for a bypass while the bridge was being reconstructed. “We are going to be using security in the coming weeks to ensure the work there can continue,” Rambachan said. He said he embarked on yesterday’s tour at the Calcutta bridge site after residents complained about delay in the project.
Rambachan, together with Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh, met with project director Mahadeo Jagdeo and Trintoplan Consultants Ltd engineer Adesh Surjunath, who told them the bridge would be delayed by two months. Surjunath explained that the project was delayed by the construction of a pedestrian bridge which was not in the scope of works. Additionally, he said, rainy weather also caused some delay.
Yesterday workers were seen pumping flood water from the construction site after heavy rain over the weekend. Surjunath said the contractors were extending work hours and adding weekends to the work schedule to offset the delays. Jagdeo said the project may be completed by next May. Rambachan told Surjunath to consider value engineering to keep the project within budget and on schedule.