Gy$130M contracts signed to upgrade roads in Diamond

By Michael Younge

The concerns of residents are slowly being addressed, as government rolled out yet another plan for massive infrastructural, rehabilitative and upgrade works at the Diamond and Grove Housing Schemes along the East Bank Demerara.

This plan was announced after the Housing and Water Ministry signed two contracts for the rehabilitation and upgrading of several key access roads in the scheme, on Tuesday at the Diamond Secondary School.

The contracts, totalling Gy$130M, will see work commencing on some seven roads in the Block A, Diamond Housing Scheme area under phase one of the massive roads rehabilitation project devised as part of the new Diamond/Grove Community Development Plan. These roads are expected to be redone with the use of asphaltic material and double digitmeanous service treatment (DDST). Priority is to be given to the areas under the project, with more than 75 per cent occupancy rate.

The contracts for lots one and two of the roads rehabilitation project were signed by Housing and Water Minister Irfaan Ali and contractors from Guyco Gaston Contracting and Romel Jagroop.

Guyana Times International understands that even though the official date set out in the contract for the commencement of work is stated as February 17, works have already been started and are officially scheduled to be completed by April 19 this year.

Under this upgrading plan, more than 1450 households are expected to benefit from the contracts.

Addressing residents of the schemes, Minister Ali said the work that will be done is only part of the government’s plan for modernising and forwarding development in the Diamond/Grove communities. He said the government recognised that the roads in Diamond were in a deplorable state, and hence undertook the responsibility of releasing budgeted funds, so that the lives of residents could be made easier.

Minister Ali urged residents to take care of the roads, and he urged them to “become part and parcel of the development process and wave of change that is expected to grip these communities”. He said he wanted residents to ‘own the process’ and to realise that the buck stops with them. “We want you residents to be integrally involved, and so you must become monitors of the final process and work that will be done by these contractors.”

According to Ali, with the upgrades, the community will benefit from a facelift, as government was taking seriously its responsibility to its electorate and the people of the country.

Ali also called for the private sector to become more “brave” and to take on “more challenges”, as he recognised that they also needed to buy into the wave of change that government has planned for Diamond/Grove, which it sees as model communities.

New entrance/exit to scheme

As concerns continued to be raised about the need for there to be another entrance/exit to the now-booming Diamond Housing Scheme, Ali announced that the Housing and Water Ministry is currently working with officials from the Public Works Ministry to design this alternative entrance/exit road. “Work on this new and alternative entrance/exit road is currently at the design stage.”

He also reported that government was concerned more generally about the traffic congestion that obtains along the East Bank highway, which is now an unsavoury situation. A remedy to the problems faced, he informed, was construction of the new four-lane highway, which is currently underway.

The minister said government was not blind to the problems facing residents of the housing scheme. Addressing concerns raised by residents with respect to the contractors mixing cement in the middle and on the shoulders of the roads in Diamond, Ali promised to intervene, but said that the Neighbourhood Democratic Council should deal more condignly with such issues. “There is need for a zero-tolerance policy and attitude , not only on the part of government and the NDC, but residents as well, to deal with these issues; and we must not run away from that.”

Security concerns of residents were also addressed, and calls were made for the establishment of a community policing group and the installation of street lights.