– work expected to cut travel time by four hours

LAST Tuesday, Cabinet granted its no-objection to a contract worth $185M for the rehabilitation and maintenance of the Linden/Lethem Road.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon made the announcement at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President in Georgetown.

Maintenance to critical sections of the Linden/Lethem Road has started with works scheduled to be completed by mid-September. The work is intended to cut travel time by four hours.

Currently, it takes approximately 16 hours to commute to Lethem from Georgetown using a minibus. The critical sections will be resurfaced with lateritic material and compacted. The contractors employed for this project, which is being executed in phases are: Troy Resources; Omai Gold Mines (OGM); Demerara Timbers Limited (DTL); Mekdeci Machinery and Construction (MMC) and Vevakanand Dalip Enterprise (DALIP).
Meanwhile, Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn had said that for sustainable works to be carried out on the road, the weather had to improve. “Any works before this would have been lost to the rains,” he said. He added that his ministry intends to establish toll stations on the critical hinterland roads to support the year-round maintenance efforts required and to limit abuse of the road from the aspect of load carriage and safety.
It is also proposed to establish a basic toll with escalation for overloading and wet passage conditions.
The Linden/Lethem road is one of the projects that falls under the hinterland road rehabilitation programme. For 2014, the Ministry has set aside $1.08B to facilitate repairs to roads countrywide.

(By Telesha Ramnarine)