Richard Lord

Work on the con­struc­tion of the Debe to Mon De­sir sec­tion of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way is ex­pect­ed to re­sume, as the High­way Re­view Com­mit­tee's re­port on the con­tro­ver­sial project gives the green light for its re­sump­tion.

But Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh ob­ject­ed yes­ter­day to the Gov­ern­ment's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the re­port.Work on that sec­tion of the project was stopped in De­cem­ber to al­low for a 60-day re­view to be done by a com­mit­tee, which was chaired by In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr James Arm­strong.

It was ap­point­ed af­ter the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil in­ter­vened in the im­passe be­tween Kublals­ingh, the leader of the High­way Re-route Move­ment, and the Gov­ern­ment.Kublals­ingh went on a hunger strike for three weeks to press for a re­view of the project late last year.

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Em­manuel George told yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in St Clair that he had re­ceived an un­signed copy of the re­port on Ash Wednes­day.He said a pre­lim­i­nary view of the re­port "brings good news to the pop­u­la­tion in that it in­di­cates that the high­way should be built."

High­way gets the green light to con­tin­ue

On the ba­sis of the find­ings of the com­mit­tee, he said, there was no is­sue with the route of the high­way or its im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment, and the Gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to "take the ad­vice and as far as pos­si­ble ac­com­mo­date their sug­ges­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions as we pro­ceed to build the high­way."

He said the re­port made three find­ings which stood out:

�2 The cho­sen route (Debe to Mon De­sir) is con­sid­ered su­pe­ri­or from "an over­all per­spec­tive."

�2 The High­way Re-route Move­ment's pro­posed route was not the prefer­able one, as it did not pro­vide for traf­fic growth in the fu­ture.

�2 The 2007 high­way hy­drol­o­gy re­port was ad­e­quate in re­spect of the bridge and cul­vert de­signs for the high­way cross­ings.

George said that meant the is­sue of flood­ing had been dealt with by that re­port.He ad­mit­ted the com­mit­tee ap­peared to have a prob­lem with the ap­proach of the au­thor­i­ties to con­struct­ing the high­way, al­though that was said "guard­ed­ly."There should have been more con­sul­ta­tions with the stake­hold­ers and the peo­ple to be re­lo­cat­ed and bet­ter re­lo­ca­tion and com­pen­sa­tion arrange­ments should have been of­fered, he said.George said the Cab­i­net thought it ap­pro­pri­ate to re­veal the in­for­ma­tion be­cause the pop­u­la­tion would have been an­tic­i­pat­ing it.But Kublals­ingh said he had a copy of the re­port and he want­ed to urge the Gov­ern­ment to treat it with the se­ri­ous­ness it de­served and not to speak un­truths about it.

Kublals­ingh said George was re­fer­ring to one line in the re­port's ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry and not the find­ings of the com­mit­tee.