Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The much an­tic­i­pat­ed Cou­va In­ter­change will be com­plet­ed by next Au­gust as the Gov­ern­ment moves to erad­i­cate traf­fic con­ges­tion on the out­skirts of the Cen­tral bor­ough. So said Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er as he toured parts of the Cou­va South con­stituen­cy on Tues­day. Warn­er, who vis­it­ed In­di­an Trail, Rivulet Road and Bas­ta Hall said the ini­tial com­ple­tion date set by con­trac­tors was June 2012. "How­ev­er, I be­lieve that Cou­va In­ter­change will take 11 to 12 months to be com­plet­ed. When the dry sea­son comes in we should be able to work faster," Warn­er said. He added that the Gov­ern­ment would have to con­struct four lanes on the Rivulet Road be­cause it could not take the traf­fic flow.

He al­so not­ed that de­signs had been com­plet­ed on the Tarou­ba Link Road and ac­tu­al phys­i­cal work will be­gin in ten days. Asked about his pri­or­i­ties for the next fis­cal year, Warn­er vowed there would be con­struc­tion of more roads, more bridges and more box drains. He said the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way, Princes Town High­way and con­struc­tion of the Mamoral Dam would al­so be­gin in the new fis­cal year. Asked whether the de­ci­sion by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an to de­fer the bud­get for Oc­to­ber had af­fect­ed con­struc­tion plans, Warn­er replied: "Not at all. The works we planned to do in Sep­tem­ber are on stream and it should not have a neg­a­tive im­pact at all."

With re­gards to night-time work in non-cur­few ar­eas, Warn­er said ini­tial­ly con­trac­tors had in­di­cat­ed that they were not equipped to do night-time work. "They are in the process of buy­ing lights and so on. We are talk­ing to them about in­creased cost and we ex­pect that night-time paving will be­gin with­in an­oth­er week or two. Right now night work is tak­ing place in Diego Mar­tin and Port-of-Spain," Warn­er said. Asked to com­ment about bud­get ex­pec­ta­tions, Warn­er said this was not un­der his port­fo­lio. "No, I'm not go­ing there. That is not my re­mit. I know the min­is­ter is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly on it and by the first week in Oc­to­ber we shall have the bud­get," Warn­er re­vealed. Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh said he planned to take Warn­er to oth­er parts of his con­stituen­cy to ex­am­ine poor roads, traf­fic con­ges­tion and de­plorable drainage.