Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc.co.tt

De­spite ten­ders to com­mence re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion work on the col­lapsed Per­se­ver­ance Road Riv­er Bridge in Ch­agua­nas clos­ing on Mon­day, May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed is not sat­is­fied with the pace of progress on it.

Last Fri­day, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Sen­a­tor, Richie Sookhai, ad­dressed the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce busi­ness mix­er at the Pas­sage to Asia Restau­rant in Ch­agua­nas, where he an­nounced ten­ders would be sent out.

The col­lapse of the north­ern and south­ern ends of the bridge has led to mas­sive traf­fic jams for those trav­el­ling in and out of Ch­agua­nas.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the bridge site, Mo­hammed said, “On Fri­day, the on­ly thing I knew was that con­trac­tors came ei­ther on Fri­day or Sat­ur­day, some­time over the week­end, for a site vis­it. I wasn’t aware they would at­tend or do any­thing like that, but I know for sure a site vis­it was made, and we are still wait­ing. How­ev­er, this is an emer­gency, and Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion emer­gen­cies usu­al­ly take pri­or­i­ty. So, I don’t un­der­stand why we’re not mov­ing more quick­ly on this mat­ter.”

The may­or not­ed that the bridge’s col­lapse was caus­ing hard­ships for many sur­round­ing busi­ness­es and ex­pressed con­cern about the school term re­open­ing in the next three weeks.

He said so far, on­ly the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty was ac­tive­ly work­ing at the site, and the bor­ough was not re­ceiv­ing up­dates from the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.

The may­or al­so said he was fine af­ter a mi­nor ac­ci­dent at his Char­lieville home on Tues­day night.

He said he was light­ing a ring stove and it flared up and since then he had seen a doc­tor and had been treat­ed for mi­nor burns to his face and hand.

He said the in­ci­dent would not stop him from serv­ing.