By Vanessa Braithwaite

THE long-awaited repairs to the Linden to Kwakwani Road have commenced. The repairs to the road were delayed as a result of the inclement weather, but the stretch from Ituni to Kwakwani has started with the contract being awarded to contractor Joseph (only name given).Repairs to the stretch from Linden to Ituni will commence shortly, Regional Vice- Chairman Elroy Adolph said.

Some $50M was allotted for the road to be repaired, making it into an all-weather road, but Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson in February during a public meeting in Kwakwani told residents that his Ministry will be securing a loan from a foreign entity to transform the all-weather road into a bituminous one.

The road has been in a deplorable state for the past seven years and part of the blame was placed at the feet of the former contractor for producing substandard work, in addition to the mediocre aggregates that were previously used to repair the road.

Vice-Chairman Adolph said he is pleased with the standard of work being carried out by the new contractor and the materials being used; “Yes, I am pleased with the work being done and the contractor thus far, things can finally look up now,” Adolph said.

Bus drivers plying the Linden to Kwakwani route have also expressed satisfaction with the work done thus far.

“After seven years, we can finally see a change. I hope the next contractor to do the other half of the road will do a good job too,” one bus driver called “Tiger” said.

He revealed that under normal conditions, a trip to Kwakwani would last three hours, but during the inclement weather; it would take a mini-bus close to five hours to reach to Kwakwani, which results in extra gasoline consumption and frequent damage to vehicles.

According to logger Kelvin Daly, the state of the road at times also caused frequent break down of lumber trucks and this affected sales. The road also did not allow for a logger to get involved in value-added production since at the end of the trip, the entire product would be broken to pieces as a result of the state of the road.

The Kwakwani access road is 150 miles long and serves communities between Linden and Kwakwani.