Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Em­manuel George is ad­mit­ting that Gov­ern­ment hired Ju­nior Sam­my Co Ltd to cor­rect the col­lapsed Sea Lots sink hole, but up to late yes­ter­day he still did not know the cost of the project. Speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day at the open­ing of a $14.8 mil­lion road-paving project at Mo­hess Road, Pe­nal, George said the con­trac­tor had not fi­nalised his price, so he had no clue how Sam­my would charge. As a re­sult, the min­istry will have to pay what­ev­er Sam­my asks, since the job was al­ready com­plet­ed.

Asked to ex­plain the cost of re­pairs and the scope of works, George said: "I don't know the costs. I asked the con­trac­tor to send in his bill. I didn't ask him to give me it in words. We just asked him to send my bill. I did not ask him to tell me over the phone." George said the con­trac­tor worked on Thurs­day night to com­plete the job: "They sim­ply did the fi­nal over­lay of as­phalt."

Asked why the min­istry did not have the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to com­plete the work, George said: "We don't have the equip­ment and man­pow­er to do this." Asked if the min­istry planned to ac­quire the nec­es­sary re­sources for such jobs, George ex­plained: "No, we will not be ac­quir­ing this be­cause we don't ex­pect this kind of thing to hap­pen reg­u­lar­ly." He said the col­lapse of the cul­vert was the rea­son for the col­lapse of the road­way.

As to whether fur­ther un­der­ground works were need­ed, George said: "I don't know. I am not an en­gi­neer and I have nev­er been in­volved in that type of work, so I can­not an­swer that ques­tion." He added: "We will look at all of the cul­verts along the Beetham to de­ter­mine their state, and de­pend­ing on the state, we will re­pair them. We have to look at the north­ern side of the cul­vert and then we will de­ter­mine what is need­ed to be done."

Sam­my, who was al­so present at the Mo­hess Road open­ing, could not give the cost ei­ther. "I have not fi­nalised any price," he said. "We fin­ished work this morn­ing at 2 am, so I have not checked out my price." Sam­my said the job was fin­ished. "All the white lines have been paint­ed and the as­phalt was repaved. I worked two nights, so I have not checked cost as yet." He could not as­cer­tain what caused the road to sink but added that the min­istry en­gi­neers were in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

On Wednes­day, around 11.30 am, a Sea Land truck-trail­er was head­ing west along the Beetham High­way in Sea Lots, op­po­site PTSC, when, sec­onds af­ter it passed, a six-foot cir­cu­lar chunk of road col­lapsed. The Works Min­istry lat­er ex­plained that a cul­vert (a cir­cu­lar drain) col­lapsed when the truck passed over it. Res­i­dents cor­doned off the hole by sur­round­ing it with de­bris.