Dear Editor,
I WROTE several letters about the deplorable state of the Agriculture Road last year but it seemed to be going on deaf ears and this road continues to deteriorate daily.

Last year, Project Engineer Anthony A. Haynes started some road works from the beginning of Agriculture Road. He graded the road from the beginning to the end of NAREI but he claimed to repair this Road up to Block CC, Mon Repos. According to his letter published in reply to my letter dated August 4th, 2017 he said the following.

”For the benefit of the Reverend and the general public, please be informed that the rehabilitation of Agriculture Road, Mon Repos/Triumph, is being undertaken by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure under its Miscellaneous Roads Programme, 2017. The contractor is K.P. Thomas and Sons Incorporated, the Project Engineer is Anthony A. Haynes, the contract sum is $59,031,149 and the site extends a distance of approximately 1230metres. Carriageway works include the upgrading of the road structure with mixed loam and/or crusher run and sealing using asphaltic concrete. The contract is scheduled to end in September of 2017.”

As I mentioned before, the work that was executed for about 800 meters and which the engineer claimed was 1230 metres cannot cost $59,031,149, or even if his 1230m was correct to just dig out bad broken concrete and fill it with’ crusher- run’ and roll it over with asphalt, it cannot cost that sum. I believe and [so do] many others, that it cannot even cost $10 million.

My concern was this engineer graded from the beginning of Agriculture Road to NAREI that’s approximately two miles or 3000 metres but only completed 1230M from his own words: why did he refuse to complete the remaining 1770 metres of deplorable road [that is] full of pot holes [that] he was paid to complete? He even went away with his machinery after he dug up the road and left it, it was when I wrote a second letter he returned to complete the work of 1230m he claimed that is still incomplete. I am calling on the auditor’s general office to carry out an audit of $59,031,149 that was spent of one third of the job on Agriculture Road that is still incomplete.

Not long ago, I was sitting by a friend who lives near the roadway in Agriculture Road when I heard a sudden sound like a bomb and my friend and I rushed to the scene. A young lady was driving her RAVA vehicle, her tire got a puncture in a very deep pothole, her vehicle skidded around and hit a parked truck and it was severely damaged. The young lady fainted as we dragged her out her vehicle, the damage to her vehicle cost over one million dollars to repair, all because of a pothole that nearly cost her to lose her life.

Potholes are all over this road, just after Block CC going to NAREI and if you are not familiar with these potholes while driving you can easily crash into another vehicle or land yourself into the nearby trench. I saw two such incidents already. This is a road that has the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) and NAREI but it’s an eyesore to this area and nation as a whole. It’s only when the minister of agriculture or the President are going to the school that the administrators will get the students to patch the holes with sand.

I believe they all should be fired because they can’t even use their machinery to throw in some brick to patch these holes that can drown a child when it rains. Here are a few pictures of this road. I am calling on the Hon. Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder and The Hon. Minister David Patterson of Public Works to come into Agriculture Road to see the deplorable state of this road.

This road needs urgent repairs and many of these business structures that occupy the roadway to do business on the government reserves should be removed. The trench on the right hand side needs urgent digging but many of these illegal businesses on the government reserves, hinder the hymacs from executing these works. Something ought to be done urgently on this road, it’s a destination for accidents.

Regards
Rev. Gideon Cecil