THE Ministry of Public Works has issued an advisory notifying of the complete closure to vehicular traffic of the section of Hunter Street running from the West Ruimveldt Front Road to Mandela Avenue, in order to facilitate ongoing construction works on the street.
The closure will be in effect from 21 – 31 January.
“The closure of the road is to facilitate works that cannot be done while traffic is traversing. We expect the road to be completed soonest though. But they have to put in the base, stabilise the road, put in the sand, loam and then we have to have it properly paved,” Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, explained on Friday in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle.
Works on the street are currently being carried out by contractor, Veira Logistics, 66, who was awarded a contract to complete the street after the original contractor, Surrey Paving and Ideal Engineering, had abandoned works on the roadway and left it in a deplorable state.

Edghill said he is satisfied with the work being carried out thus far and with the pace at which the construction is moving.
“Works are moving apace. Still too early to make a pronouncement on the current contractor but I would say that what I see is satisfactory, at least compared to what was,” Edghill stated.
The contract for Veira Logistics 66 is approximately $100 million while according to the Auditor General’s 2019 report, Surrey Paving was paid approximately $35.041 million from the $86.685 million contract that the company was awarded in May 2019. The original contract was expected to begin on 10 June 2019 with a completion date of 11 December 2019.

The defects liability period was 12 months and works included the construction of pedestrian side walk with concrete drains on the eastern side of the carriageway, along with widening of road shoulders, full construction of concrete drain at the western side and asphalt concrete road surface finish.
The contractor was granted three extensions with a revised contractual completion date of 7 August 2020; however, work on the street eventually trickled until it ceased, and while the road was expanded and sand- filled, it was left in a deplorable state, even as vehicles continued to traverse the street.
Hunter Street is one of a few alternative routes connecting the East Bank Demerara to the City, and therefore has become a major road for many commuters looking to avoid the heavy East Bank-bound traffic. Drivers traversing the street and residents continually complained that the State of the road was seriously affecting them.

QUITE ECSTATIC
“I went to the site and the people were quite ecstatic just to see me to know that they will get the place cleaned up and the road will become usable and somebody was coming to do the work. The residents had become fed up, I had to give ultimatums to the previous contractor. There was a 90-year-old man that couldn’t get into his own yard,” Minister Edghill shared.
Much remedial work had to be carried out when the Veira Logistics 66 took over the works. The new company had noted that it had an uphill task of rectifying several defective works that were done by the previous contractor, including the removal and replacement of the sand-filling.
“There was need for a lot of remedial work to be done on site because the contractor who was there before really left the site in a mess. He had abandoned the site and it wasn’t properly cleaned up; there were heaps of mud, the people’s pavements were not fixed back.

Those were things I went out and ordered that he fixed,” Edghill explained He further said that: “It was just negligence, carelessness, and I don’t think they placed a proper team to get the work done. Because compare that to the quality of the work that they did at the West Coast (Berbice), which I would say was done properly. I am not sure if they ever really gave a reason that is worth repeating.” Edghill noted that notwithstanding the scope of remedial work being carried out by the current contractor, it is all expected to fall within the contract sum.
“We have made it very clear to all the contractors, you have a scope of work and we are working with that. I am not going to encourage variation business or culture. Because you can’t come in with a particular price, win the contract and when you get to the site you want to size up the size of the contract to make more money,” he said.