RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion from Point Fortin to San Fer­nan­do is 87 per cent com­plete.

And he is hop­ing that by the end of the year most of the high­way seg­ments will be open to the pub­lic.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Sinanan said 12 pack­ages were award­ed to con­trac­tors in 2017 but works were de­layed not on­ly by COVID-19 but al­so by in­clement weath­er.

“In 2017, we award­ed 12 pack­ages to con­tin­ue the high­way from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin. To date, five pack­ages have been com­plet­ed and sev­en are on­go­ing. They are about 87 per cent com­plet­ed.”

He not­ed that dif­fer­ent seg­ments of the high­way works are on­go­ing. “When we start­ed in 2017, work was just about 36 per cent in some ar­eas and 50 per cent in oth­er ar­eas. We have def­i­nite­ly made head­way,” Sinanan said.

He added, “At the end of the day, we went through a pe­ri­od of COVID virus which pushed us back. We had to stop work and that gave us ma­jor chal­lenges with man­pow­er and equip­ment but if you put COVID-19 be­hind us and con­sid­er the in­clement weath­er, I would say we did pret­ty well to bring it from 36 per cent to 87 per cent,” he added.

Sinanan said he re­mains hope­ful that most of the seg­ments will be opened to the pub­lic by De­cem­ber.

“We are hav­ing chal­lenges with the in­clement weath­er but we are on tar­get to the end of this year to have most of the high­way ac­ces­si­ble from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin. There are some ar­eas that Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Nid­co) is look­ing at and will come up with some strate­gies if those ar­eas are not com­plet­ed,” Sinanan said.

He not­ed, “We be­lieve you will be able to dri­ve from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin by the end of this year.”

Asked how the rest of the high­way will be fi­nanced, Sinanan said: “The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to source the fi­nanc­ing and he has been work­ing with us on it,” Sinanan said.

He not­ed that he plans to tour some of the ar­eas which have been com­plet­ed.

The high­way was sup­posed to be com­plet­ed late last year but set­backs with COVID ham­pered the com­ple­tion.

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