RALPH BAN­WARIE

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says wood­en bridges across the coun­try will soon be a thing of the past as his min­istry is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to have these wood­en bridges re­placed by per­ma­nent struc­tures.

He made this an­nounce­ment at the open­ing of two bridges on the Paria Main Road, To­co.

The con­struc­tion of the two bridges was com­plet­ed by con­trac­tor Gen­er­al Earth Movers at a cost of $11,760,910.34 on time with no over­run cost. In fact, the Min­istry saved $632,259. 32.

Sinanan al­so called on Gary Aboud, En­vi­ro­men­tal­ist and Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary of Con­ser­va­tion Group Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea, to stop spread­ing false news on Face­book and oth­er so­cial me­dia about the fail­ure of the Gov­ern­ment to builld the new high­way to To­co.

Sinanan said work had be­gun with drainage and resur­fac­ing of the road and the project had been pro­gress­ing.

He said the Port would com­mence as soon they re­ceived ap­proval from the EMA and that Aboud should have his facts cor­rect be­fore pre­sent­ing false in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic.

MP for To­co/ San­gre Grande Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith thanked Sinanan for hav­ing the two bridges com­plet­ed and said now more peo­ple would be able to vis­it To­co and Matelot.

Coun­cil­lor for the area and chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Ter­ry Ron­don said that as from to­day, PTSC bus­es would be ply­ing in these ar­eas as they would now be able to pass on the two new bridges.

He al­so said the peo­ple of these ar­eas could now have their ma­te­ri­als for con­struc­tion pur­pos­es reach the build­ing sites and most im­por­tant­ly, the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­er Gov­ern­ment agen­cies would be able to have con­struc­tion projects com­plet­ed as the bridges could ac­com­mo­date heavy equip­ment and trucks reach­ing as far as Matelot.