$5M to protect Region 5 community and farm to market roads

– 100 steel barriers to be erected

DPI, Guyana, Sunday, July 29, 2018

The Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Mahaica/Berbice will expend $5Million on the erection of one hundred steel barriers at entrances to community and farm to-market-roads throughout Region Five. This was disclosed by the administration’s Senior Regional Engineer, Dhanpaul Sukha.

The administration, he said, plans to erect a minimum of sixty more steel barriers at the entrance of other community and farm-to-market roads during 2019.

This venture falls under the administration’s Public Infrastructure maintenance of other works programme for this year and will protect these roadways from indiscriminate damage by drivers of heavy-duty vehicles and equipment.

Sukha emphasised that this measure will be reinforced with legal action against those who commit these actions. Earlier this week, the Senior Engineer said the problem of the indiscriminate use of heavy-duty vehicles, leading to damage of rehabilitated and upgraded community and farm-to-market roads had become more pronounced in recent months.

“The administration would have rehabilitated several farm-to-market roads in Region Five this year; spending a lot of money in the process of so doing. However, a main challenge for the regional administration is the fact that delinquent farmers are destroying the roadways – assets of the communities – by irresponsible use of heavy duty-vehicles such as lorries and tractors on these roads.”

Sukha said that some of these roads had been protected by wooden barriers but noted that there were instances where persons driving heavy-duty trucks had driven the cab of the vehicle under the barrier and then used the hydraulic jack on the tray to lift up the barrier and in the process, destroyed it in order to gain access to a particular area.

He lamented: “Destroying these roads two weeks after they are upgraded with the use of Government funds makes the program uneconomical.” The Senior Engineer appealed to residents to report the delinquent persons so that they can be placed before the court.

Sukha also urged officers and councillors of the Neighborhood Democratic Council (NDC) to be more hands-on in protecting the roads in their various villages.

“We would like to see more charges being instituted by the NDCs; more individuals being placed before the court to put an end to this kind of irresponsible and criminal behaviour by these culprits,” Sukha stressed.

Story and Image: Clifford Stanley