PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The Point Fortin High­way is al­most three quar­ter way done, but re­cent de­lays caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic have pushed full com­ple­tion to mid to late 2022.

In re­sponse to queries about the project from Guardian Me­dia, The Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) said work had been pro­gress­ing well pri­or to clo­sure of the con­struc­tion in­dus­try in May for two months as part of the state’s ef­fort to curb ris­ing num­bers of COVID-19 cas­es in the coun­try.

NID­CO said, “Works have re­sumed on nine work pack­ages of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin Project fol­low­ing the COVID-19 shut down and State of Emer­gency im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od May 7, 2021 to Ju­ly 4, 2021. The on­go­ing pack­ages com­prise con­struc­tion of four riv­er bridges, five in­ter­changes lo­cat­ed at Oropouce Junc­tion, Mon De­sir, Grants Road, La Brea and Guapo, two over­pass bridges lo­cat­ed at Del­hi Road and South­ern Main Road—Vance Riv­er and 30 km of four lanes rur­al ar­te­r­i­al high­way that would con­nect San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin and al­so Fyz­abad Road to Mon De­sir.”

NID­CO con­firmed that the two months lost, as well as the high lev­el of rain fall in the ear­ly months of 2021 pushed back the es­ti­mat­ed date of com­ple­tion of the project.

“Pri­or to the re­cent shut­down, works on all nine work pack­ages were pro­gress­ing with the lat­est pack­age pro­ject­ed to be com­plet­ed by ear­ly 2022. The re­cent shut­down and wet­ter than av­er­age 2021 dry sea­son have sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed this planned sched­ule,” said NID­CO who reaf­firmed that work on the project was a pri­or­i­ty.

NID­CO said, “The re­vised sched­ule of the works would see all on­go­ing work pack­ages com­plet­ed and 30km of high­way be­tween Dum­fries Road (La Ro­maine) and Dun­lop round­about (Point Fortin) will be opened to traf­fic by the third quar­ter of 2022. The project is now es­ti­mat­ed to be ap­prox­i­mate­ly 73 per cent com­plet­ed.”

NID­CO said the project when com­plet­ed, will sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce trav­el time from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin, elim­i­nate the peren­ni­al flood­ing at Mos­qui­to Creek and pro­vide over­all im­prove­ment to the ef­fi­cien­cy of the road net­work around many com­mu­ni­ties in south Trinidad.