Essequibo Coast Road suffering rapid deterioration - Regional Chairman
The Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region Two is calling on the Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MPI) to upgrade the Essequibo Coast Public Road which it says is continuing to suffer rapid deterioration.
Regional Chairman Devanand Ramdatt, in a press statement explained that several areas along the coast, particularly between Somerset and Charity are rapidly deteriorating and as such, he is calling on the Ministry to address the issue.
Ramdatt said that road users are at present dealing with huge potholes, the sinking of approaches of bridges, excessive vegetation along the road shoulders and malfunctioning street lights.
Efforts by Stabroek News to elicit a comment from MPI on this matter have failed.
Similar complaints have been made by residents about the Charity Access Road and several streets in the Extension Housing Scheme.
Stabroek News was told that when it rains, pedestrians are forced to wait several minutes for vehicles to navigate the potholes and ditches since the place is usually messy, making it very difficult for persons to walk without being splashed with dirty water.
Expressing frustration and concern on the issue, one resident who spoke to Stabroek News on condition of anonymity, said that he is shocked that the Charity/Urasara Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) and the Regional Administration has allowed the Main Access Road in Charity to deteriorate to such a state.
“The part of the road in Charity that is, at its worst, is because of neglect and negligence on the part of the NDC and the Regional Administration. The potholes in the road are causing damage to property because as a vehicle owner, it is hard to go around the holes and then it leads my vehicle to being damaged. You won’t want to see the condition of that place when it rains. It is very unsightly and messy and when there is heavy traffic, everything becomes worse. As residents, we are again pleading with those in authority to look into the state and condition of the public road, and also the streets in the scheme because some streets are getting worse by the day,” he added.
Residents further allege that inferior works done by contractors have also led to the early depletion of the road and streets in Charity since the contractors only filled the potholes with loam instead of using proper materials.
Chairman of the Charity/ Urasara NDC, Beatrice Mittelholzer in an invited comment, said that representation was made by the NDC to have the streets in the Extension Scheme repaired.
“We did correspondence and letters for all the streets in the Charity Housing Scheme and we were indeed called to collect the material. However, we were told that the grader that [we] would need to use to load the material into our trailer is down. I was recently visited by the Vice Chairman [Juliet Coonjah] who informed me of this. The Region under the Ministry of Infra-structure started works on the streets in the Scheme but they run out of the main material that is to be used for rehabilitating the streets. Because of this, works had to be paused, and also, because of the weather but works will definitely continue for the New Year.”
Asked about the state of the