The Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region 10 has flagged several local contractors for substandard works on a number of completed and ongoing infrastructural projects and road works in the region.

This was done during a rollout of an inspection exercise led by the Regional Chairman, Deron Adams last week.

Adams, during an update on Sunday, told the Guyana Chronicle that contractors have since been called out for their negligence and the Regional Administration has since demanded that at least one contractor resurface a road that was poorly done in Rainbow City, Mackenzie.

“We are going to only accept quality roads; roads made with asphaltic concrete and we have also proposed that those roads have accompanying drains,” Adams said during a telephone interview.

According to the Chairman, during the inspection exercise, it was revealed that contractors were rebuilding roads without drainage mechanism in place, leaving many residents experiencing floods when it rains.

“What we noticed when we got into office was that contractors were doing roads where water had no way of draining off and drainage became an issue.”

He noted that the administration will be holding contractors accountable for substandard works and blacklisting them.

“I don’t want take money out of anybody’s pocket or anything but we cannot have contractors coming and doing substandard work,” he said, adding: “All we are asking for is high quality work; if contractors perform, we will have high quality work.”

Additionally, to properly manage ongoing works in the region, the Chairman said that at the last statutory meeting held, councillors were charged with conducting regular inspections across the region.

“I would have mandated councillors to be in the field, we have asked Works Department to be more responsible in managing works that have been assigned to contractors and to ensure that we have satisfactory work and that our roads are built to a high standard.”

The regional chairman further disclosed that several projects have also been flagged due to contractors not having proper equipment to execute works in their respective contracts.

“Right now, we have contractors lying, saying that they have equipment and we had to flag a project where the RDC equipment was being used.”

Out of the $4.7 B budget for 2021, a total of $550M was allocated for infrastructural works in the region; however, according to Adams, the substandard works that have since been done has seen only 50 per cent of the infrastructural projects for the year being completed.