– Minister Ramsammy

THE East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) Northern Relief Channel, the Hope Canal, which missed its June 30 deadline for completion, was given a new deadline yesterday, when its completion was raised at the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment.Agriculture Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, when he appeared before the Committee, disclosed that the project will be completed in seven weeks, by September.
He explained that the delay is due to “external challenges” that the contractor is facing and the Ministry is working with the contractor to address these.
Ramsammy said, “We are about 85 per cent complete and we are working with the contractor on external issues. We have an arrangement to complete this in seven weeks, this is the work plan. Some of the details of that (the external challenges), it will not be fair for me to discuss that in public.”
According to him, there is an alternative available to the Ministry, but this will see the completion of the project moving over to 2015.
“The alternative is to terminate the contract; but then we will not have this project until next year. So we have chosen to work with the contractor to address the external challenges and have this project complete,” he said.
The Minister stressed that the project, despite the delay, will be completed within the budgeted cost.
“The project will remain within cost, but should we terminate and go with another contractor, we will go beyond time frame, as well as beyond the cost we initially estimated,” Ramsammy said.

FOUR COMPONENTS
He added that of the four components of the project, work has been advanced significantly.
The project has four components: the more than 10-kilometre channel, the head regulator, the eight-gate sluice at the canal’s Atlantic end, and the EDWC Northern Relief Channel Public Road Bridge.
The latter was completed and commissioned in February, while the head regulator has been largely completed, with only a winch mechanism to be installed.
“We have procured the item and we are waiting on delivery,” he said.
He added that the more than 10-kilometre channel is completed, with minor finessing works to be done, and the Outer Sluice Structure is about 85 per cent complete.
“On the outer sluice, the steel doors are being constructed and they are mostly finished. This part of the work is outside of the contractor’s responsibility,” Ramsammy said, adding that the remaining work on the sluice is being addressed by the contractor, who is on-site.
Additionally, the actual testing of the functionality of the channel will have to await the availability of an adequate fill volume of the channel.
Indications were that the US $15M Hope Canal project, which is expected to be the answer to the flooding experienced in the Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary (MMA) areas during rainy periods, would be operational as the rainy season sets in.
Residents in the MMA area over the years have lost crops and cattle in floods, during the rainy period. As seen in the past, when the Maduni sluice has to be opened to drain the East Demerara Water Conservancy, residents in the MMA area have to battle a rise in the Mahaica Creek – making the completion of the Hope Canal something that is much needed.
Construction on the project began in February 2011, with an estimated 18 months for completion and the deadline for the project was initially set for June 2013, but was subsequently extended to the end of August, and then once again extended to December 31, 2013, then to June 30, 2014.

(By Vanessa Narine )