Member of Parliament for Mayaro Rushton Paray is calling on the Government to update the public on the status of the construction of the Manzanilla Road.
This is because in less than four months, the temporary ten-kilometre Mayaro Bypass Road, which was built alongside the destroyed Manzanilla Road to give commuters a working route, at a cost of $14 million, has become riddled with potholes.
The bypass road became necessary after floodwaters washed away part of Manzanilla/Mayaro Road last year, making it impassable.
However, due to the current condition of the bypass road, Paray said, “the constituents of Mayaro are boiling right now.”
Paray said he has tried numerous times to get an update on the promised technical report to begin the permanent construction of the new roadway from Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan, but is yet to get a response.
“I’ve asked the minister via my media release to come out in the public and say, ‘What is the status of this? Have the technical drawings been done? Did the tender go out to bid? Have you secured your five contractors? And when is the new road going to start? None of those three questions has been answered by the minister either in private to me, or even to the media. So, we still await our response from the minister on that.”
He said he had not received any information regarding the beginning of Phase 2 construction of the roadways. He said to his knowledge, a technical survey was supposed to begin in January, kickstarting the repairs.
“January, February was the design phase. And when a design is approved, in March, it will go out to tender. In March, the tender, they would have broken the 10 kilometre roadway into five 2-kilometre contracts. So, basically, they would give five contractors five pieces to build because he (Sinanan) said that the Prime Minister had asked that the road be completed by September, because September, October, November is when the heavy rains come and he did not want to have a situation again.”
Paray said after the December 2022 floods, the Government created the bypass road on the western side of the Manzanilla Road, close to the Nariva Swamp, to allow the flow of traffic between Sangre Grande and Mayaro.
He said since then, “about 80% of the surface of the road has deteriorated. Which means any person driving about 8 to 10 kilometres on that piece of roadway, your vehicle feels like it wants to fall apart.”
He acknowledged that the building of the roadway itself came with challenges.
The first was putting an asphalt surface on the road at 10 or $12 million, knowing that a new 10-kilometre road is earmarked to be built before the year is over. The second was that they could not use any petroleum-based binder because it could have had an environmental impact on the swamp area.
Paray said he contacted the Programme for Upgrading Roads Efficiency Unit (PURE) and Sinanan to provide temporary working solutions.
“I’ve also advised them and said in the interim, can you just grade it and roll it back and perhaps you may have to grade and roll once a month to at least allow for an easier journey on the bypass road. I mean, it’s $14 million that was spent to build the road and I can’t justify to constituents after $14 million, this is the condition of the road that you have to drive on.”
Paray said PURE began some remedial work on the Manzanilla bypass road last Thursday, which is expected to provide some much-needed relief. He said while he did not condone protest action taken by constituents last week to highlight the matter, he understands their frustration.
“When you have a breakdown in the Manzanilla Road, it means that we lose business. Our hoteliers lose business, and our restaurants lose business because nobody is going to leave Port-of-Spain to come to San Fernando o take that very brutal Naparima Mayaro Road to come to Mayaro. They’re not going to do it.”
Apart from businesses, healthcare access was an issue.
“Then emergency medical services, Sangre Grande General Hospital, it’s a closer and easier run for premium medical services. You have emergency medical services, you have police officers, you have EMT, who has to straddle that route back and forward. When that link breaks, we are at a disadvantage,” Paray said.
Resident Andrew Brooks, who was severely impacted by the December 2022 floods after losing part of his home, said he hoped they would get positive action before the upcoming rainy season.
“This rainy season coming in June is going to be terrible here in Manzanilla... I am scared... that road is going to turn into a river or a swamp because the swamp is on the right side,” he said.
“Millions were spent and honestly it doesn’t even look like $2 million was spent.”
He said businesses in the area have come to a standstill, since there just are not enough customers traversing the roads to keep them afloat.
“Commerce is non-existent now. Some of the locals would put their little fruits out, their coconuts, mangoes, but it has less traffic because people don’t want to damage their vehicles.”
Asked if he had hopes the road will fixed in the near future, Brooks said, “It’s a type of wait-and-see thing and only when something happens people run and do what they have to do.”
Contacted on the issue, Works and Transport Minister Sinanan said ongoing remedial works are being done on the temporary Manzanilla Bypass Road, which has allowed connectivity to hundreds of motorists.
Sinanan reminded the public that the road was a temporary one and it had to be maintained all the time.
“The options we gave was either that we close off the road and pass through Biche, but we decided that was not the best option, and so we built this temporary bypass road to restore connectivity,” he said.
He noted that the final designs of the permanent road were being completed and the temporary road is being continually maintained. Saying he and a team from the ministry planned to visit the area soon, Sinanan also provided photos and videos of the ongoing remedial work.
—With reporting by Radhica De Silva