Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has tak­en con­trol of the $7.2 bil­lion Gol­con­da to Point Fortin high­way ex­ten­sion project. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ap­point­ed a Cab­i­net com­mit­tee-which she heads-to over­see the con­struc­tion of the high­way. Three oth­er Min­is­ters-Hous­ing and En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine-are on the com­mit­tee which al­so in­cludes Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jack Warn­er. The high­way ex­ten­sion project will im­pact on ar­eas with­in the con­stituen­cies of Min­is­ters Mooni­lal, Shar­ma and Roop­nar­ine, and al­so the PM's Siparia con­stituen­cy.

The mega project falls un­der Warn­er's purview. Warn­er hand­ed over a $1.5 bil­lion cheque to the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) on June 29, to com­mence con­struc­tion of the project five months af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter turned the sod. The cheque, Warn­er said, was the first of four pay­ments tak­en from Gov­ern­ment re­sources and not bor­rowed as ini­tial­ly planned. He ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that the sec­ond pay­ment was not yet avail­able but as­sured the project would not be halt­ed.

The mega project is be­ing con­struct­ed by Con­struc­to­ra OAS and sub-con­trac­tor Na­mal­co. Con­struc­tion of the high­way in­cludes 18 cross roads, eight in­ter­changes and eight bridges.

The project is ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate some 10,000-plus jobs. Lo­cal con­trac­tors promised piece of the 'pie' It was in Jan­u­ary, Warn­er promised lo­cal con­trac­tors that they would not be left out of the con­struc­tion boom. Warn­er as­sured con­trac­tors that 40 per cent of the mega projects would be award­ed to them. The min­is­ter main­tained that na­tion­al con­trac­tors must earn the right to get work on Gov­ern­ment's ma­jor con­struc­tion projects over the next few years. Warn­er made the com­ment af­ter tour­ing the in­dus­tri­al com­plex of Coos­al's Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny in cen­tral Trinidad.

He stat­ed: "Our in­ten­tion is to give the lo­cal con­struc­tion in­dus­try a min­i­mum of 40 per cent of the con­tract on the high­way to Point Fortin but it would be giv­en to those who de­serve it. The con­trac­tor has to earn the right to par­tic­i­pate." One such con­trac­tor, Warn­er said, who has earned that right is Coos­al's Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Ltd. Coos­al's ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Sie­u­nar­ine Coos­al had said a min­is­te­r­i­al vis­it should form part of the pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion process for com­pa­nies seek­ing con­tracts. The com­pa­ny is at present in­volved in ma­jor road works along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way.

Mooni­lal: High­way ex­ten­sion biggest in his­to­ry

Con­firm­ing the set­ting up of the com­mit­tee, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the aim was to as­sist with the process. "The high­way to Point Fortin is a ma­jor in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenge; Maybe one of the biggest in our his­to­ry and it in­volves about 10,000 res­i­dents of south Trinidad, hun­dreds of house­holds, farm­ers, com­mer­cial and pri­vate prop­er­ties and in­fra­struc­ture is­sues. It is re­al­ly com­plex and we need­ed to have a team in South to en­sure that the high­way is built and con­struc­tion takes place in a time­ly ba­sis."

Mooni­lal said the three MPs ap­point­ed on the com­mit­tee con­stituen­cies fall with­in route of the high­way.

The con­stituen­cies are-Oropouche East, Oropouche West and Fyz­abad. Mooni­lal said of­fi­cials from Nid­co and the Min­istry of Works and var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty groups are al­so on board. "There is an on­go­ing pro­ce­dure in terms of the con­struc­tion of the high­way. MPs that are so af­fect­ed be­cause their con­stituen­cies fall with­in route of the high­way are on the com­mit­tee. We have a team that meets reg­u­lar­ly to look at the is­sues in terms of the re­lo­ca­tion mat­ter and some of the le­gal oblig­a­tion that the Gov­ern­ment has to con­trac­tors," Mooni­lal said.

Warn­er: I have no prob­lem

Warn­er, mean­while, said he was aware the Prime Min­is­ter is head of the com­mit­tee. "The terms and ref­er­ence of the com­mit­tee in some ways were de­signed by me and if the com­mit­tee is to su­per­vise and to have over­sight that the high­way is built with­in bud­get and time I have no prob­lem with that. "The com­mit­tee is re­al­ly to look and see the peo­ple who are to be re­lo­cat­ed are not com­pro­mised in any way and to see that the high­way and to see the con­stituen­cies of the MPs where the high­way pass­es are not af­fect­ed," Warn­er said.