Rambachan: Only traffic lights on Point Highway

On March 6, Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan and Nidco officials commissioned the lights on the South Trunk Road, La Romaine saying the long-delayed highway was expected to be restarted by May, with a completion date by 2020.

“The three packages to restart (are) out right now and we expect that by March 20, all the tenders will be in,” Sinanan had said. “It will take about a month to evaluate the tender documents and we should have the highway restarted by the end of April, beginning of May for the latest.

Once we start the highway, the intention is to take it straight down to Point Fortin. We give you the assurance that the highway will be completed.” However, in a media release on Friday, Rambachan said Sinanan had “opened a stretch of road which was completed 18 months ago” adding that the PNM administration, which won the 2015 general election some 18 months earlier, “has not built any portion of the highway since it came into office! “Yes, it took 18 months to install a traffic light and open a piece of the highway constructed 18 months ago. The PNM is trying to create an illusion that it is doing something with the highway,” Rambachan said, while the girders for the new bridge just before the Shore of Peace cremation site had “also been sitting there for 18 months and...the bridge was half completed 18 months ago.” “The failure of the PNM government to get the highway to Point Fortin going will result in cost escalation.

In addition, the economic cost and productivity losses continue to rise,” he said, adding the Mosquito Creek segment was “well on its way to completion.” “If the Minister of Works and the PNM want to do something of value on the highway they should in the short term proceed to complete two lanes of the project straight to Point Fortin from Grants Trace where the highway had reached. This will ease traffic on the old route through La Brea.

“In addition they should complete the section along the Mosquito Creek and up to St Mary’s South Oropouche to alleviate the traffic pile-up on a daily basis,” Rambachan said.