Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

De­spite the re­cent work stop­page and protests, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan says he is not wor­ried about set­backs in the com­ple­tion of the $7 bil­lion Point Fortin to San Fer­nan­do high­way.He made the state­ment while tour­ing the con­struc­tion site yes­ter­day, the day af­ter work­ers is­sued an ul­ti­ma­tum to the Brazil­ian con­trac­tor, OAS Con­struc­to­ra, to ad­dress safe­ty and wage con­cerns.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter meet­ing with OAS project man­ag­er An­dre Car­val­ho, Ram­bachan said re­cent prob­lems with work­ers were not in­sur­mount­able.He said OAS was work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to en­sure that the first phase from Gol­con­da to Debe was com­plet­ed by Ju­ly.How­ev­er, Ram­bachan ad­mit­ted to be­ing con­cerned about safe­ty is­sues."I have asked Nid­co to look at the safe­ty is­sues which the work­ers have raised.

"There has been one fa­tal ac­ci­dent and we want to be sure that we can boast in the fu­ture that no hours were lost to ac­ci­dent, no lives have been lost and no one was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured when the high­way is com­plet­ed."I will be pay­ing at­ten­tion to safe­ty and I have asked Min­is­ter Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine to have di­rect over­sight over the safe­ty is­sues," Ram­bachan said.He hoped the con­cerns could be ad­dressed bi­lat­er­al­ly be­tween OAS and the con­tract work­ers.

The min­is­ter al­so said he would in­ves­ti­gate re­ports that the son of a man­ag­er of OAS was ex­tort­ing $2,500 from peo­ple re­quest­ing jobs at OAS.

What union said

Labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) Aaron Moyne said af­ter ne­go­ti­a­tions with OAS on Tues­day, work­ers agreed to re­turn to work. He said OW­TU would fol­low due process by giv­ing the com­pa­ny 15 days to ad­dress wage and safe­ty con­cerns.