Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Chair­man of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Josi­ah Austin says there is a short­age of hot mix as­phalt, which is usu­al­ly sup­plied by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, for them to re­pair road­ways.

“Around this time, it’s a bit slow to get be­cause of re­sources, be­cause of fi­nances, and oth­er­wise,” he ex­plained.

That is why Austin wel­comed a road re­pair project mak­ing use of Nibs, a by-prod­uct of ce­ment man­u­fac­tur­ing that was once con­sid­ered waste, to pave the road.

“Be­cause of the span of our re­gion and the types of roads that we have, we al­ways look for­ward to in­no­v­a­tive ways,” Austin said.

The project, which was done four days ago, was a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort by the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed, Ce­mex Ltd, and oth­er busi­ness­es along the Race Course Road. Stake­hold­ers re­turned yes­ter­day to see the re­sult.

“It is still hold­ing strong, a lot of trucks pass on this road, so we are here to do some more...we will be mov­ing to oth­er parts of the re­gion, this is just one of the pub­lic/pri­vate part­ner­ships for the ben­e­fit of the burgess­es of Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co,” he said.

TCL’s com­mer­cial co­or­di­na­tor, Avaleen Mooloo, said the ben­e­fits of Nibs are the low cost, ease of in­stal­la­tion, short wait time to use the road af­ter paving, and a smoother ride for the end user.

Mooloo said the ce­ment-based roads should last ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years once they are main­tained.

TCL pro­vid­ed the ma­te­ri­als for the project, and the Cor­po­ra­tion pro­vid­ed the man­pow­er and equip­ment.

Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca.Do­minic Ro­main said while he was cam­paign­ing, fix­ing Race Course Road was high­ly re­quest­ed, and he was hap­py to de­liv­er to the thou­sands of peo­ple who use the road­way.

“This was one of the is­sues that was raised and I was asked to treat with it ur­gent­ly,”he said.

He al­so hoped busi­ness­es in the area would pro­vide con­stituents with jobs, as many worked in the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme.