Geisha Kow­lessar

The high­way re­view com­mit­tee head­ed by In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr James Arm­strong will be fi­nalised to­mor­row. Be­tween ten and 12 lo­cal ex­perts have al­ready been cho­sen by the com­mit­tee, Arm­strong said yes­ter­day. Spe­cial­ists are be­ing be se­lect­ed in the field of trans­porta­tion, hy­drol­o­gy and drainage, so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­pact, eco­nom­ic analy­sis, high­way en­gi­neer­ing and prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion.

Arm­strong said there would be con­sul­tan­cy tak­ing place with in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts to se­cure ad­di­tion­al opin­ions. "We would not be bring­ing in any in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts be­cause that would be very cost­ly. In­stead we would be send­ing the doc­u­ments to them for re­view so as to get a sec­ond opin­ion," he said.

The In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor was named to head a coali­tion of ex­perts from civ­il en­gi­neer­ing fields to de­ter­mine whether the so­cial im­pact of the Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way had been ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed.

The com­mit­tee is be­ing set up by the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) and oth­er groups to do the re­view and Arm­strong said he was con­fi­dent that to­mor­row all names would be fi­nalised. It was that com­mit­tee and the promise of that in­de­pen­dent re­view which end­ed a 21-day hunger strike by en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivist Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh.

An of­fice at the Pro­fes­sion­al Cen­tre Build­ing at Fitzblack­man Dri­ve, Wright­son Road Ex­ten­sion, Port-of-Spain, has been made avail­able to the com­mit­tee to car­ry out its work, which it is ex­pect­ed to fin­ish with­in a 60-day dead­line. "That of­fice space, which is the JCC's of­fice space, is very lim­it­ed. We might need ad­di­tion­al space at an­oth­er lo­ca­tion, and the JCC would be try­ing to arrange that so all our in­ter­views could be done there," Arm­strong said.

Work­ing from the day he was se­lect­ed, Arm­strong said he still had to ex­am­ine a lot of pa­per­work. "We've got a vast amount of work to do. I have been work­ing very hard at go­ing through the doc­u­ments," he said. He is al­so ex­pect­ed to go on an aer­i­al tour via he­li­copter of the Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment ei­ther to­day or to­mor­row.

Asked about the cost of the ex­er­cise, he said the ini­tia­tive was be­ing un­der­tak­en by the JCC. "I was en­gaged by the JCC and the JCC would have al­so played a key part in se­lect­ing the spe­cial­ists," Arm­strong said. "The whole ex­er­cise is be­ing un­der­tak­en by the JCC, so that's where the cost fac­tor would come in."

Calls to the JCC's pres­i­dent Afra Ray­mond went unan­swered yes­ter­day. A text mes­sage to Ray­mond ask­ing the cost of the ini­tia­tive al­so got no re­ply.