Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine says di­lap­i­dat­ed bridges soon will be a thing of the past. She said in the last fi­nan­cial year sev­er­al bridges had been re­paired by the High­ways Di­vi­sion and the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (PURE) Unit. She made the state­ment in a news re­lease yes­ter­day.

She said in 2011 the min­istry launched its bridges re­con­struc­tion pro­gramme. She said 92 bridges were tar­get­ed for re­pair un­der the pro­gramme from 2012 to 2017. The cost to re­pair the bridges is ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.35 bil­lion. She said phase one of the pro­gramme be­gan last March. Ten­ders for the re­con­struc­tion of ten of those bridges were is­sued at the end of last month.

An ad­di­tion­al ten­der for one ad­di­tion­al bridge would be is­sued short­ly. The bridges are sched­uled for con­struc­tion by next Jan­u­ary, the re­lease added. Roop­nar­ine said she was hap­py to see land­slides be­ing fixed. She said last week the min­istry re­opened Morne La Croix Road, Ari­ma. That bridge had been closed since last year, the min­is­ter said.

She said her min­istry had a $1.75 bil­lion five-year land­slip re­pair pro­gramme. She added: "Land­slips cre­ate ma­jor in­con­ve­niences to com­mu­ni­ties as they cut off ac­cess to chil­dren from their schools and cre­ate trou­ble to those ac­cess­ing pub­lic trans­porta­tion."