Six years af­ter launch­ing the $178 mil­lion Moru­ga Road Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Project, Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan says the work has now cost the Gov­ern­ment clos­er to $200 mil­lion or more.

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from Moru­ga/Table­land MP Michelle Ben­jamin dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Par­lia­ment, Sinanan said the min­istry will use $25 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for this project in fis­cal 2024 for a new pro­gramme to com­plete the work. He ex­plained there was con­stant land move­ment in the re­gion for vary­ing rea­sons. The spend­ing will al­so cov­er out­stand­ing bills and on­go­ing work on land­slips, cul­verts and bridges. Sinanan said Ben­jamin knows Moru­ga is a chal­leng­ing area with con­tin­u­ous soil move­ment.

“We start­ed that project with, I think, 21 land­slips. I think we are up to about 80 now, so this is just a con­tin­u­a­tion be­cause we are com­ing to a close on the part of the road that we had a pro­gramme, so this is to con­tin­ue to fin­ish a cou­ple more land­slips on the road, some more paving and to pay off out­stand­ing bills that we have,” Sinanan said.

When Sinanan launched the project in 2017, he said it would in­crease ve­hi­cle ca­pac­i­ty and de­crease com­mut­ing times. The project en­tailed work on 35 km of road and in­fra­struc­ture be­tween Pe­tit Café, Princes Town and Marac Vil­lage, Moru­ga. Carib As­phalt Pavers Lim­it­ed, Gen­er­al Earth Movers Lim­it­ed and Lutch­meesingh’s Trans­port Com­pa­ny Ltd were the main con­trac­tors with a man­date to com­plete the project in 2019.

Sinanan al­so an­nounced that Gov­ern­ment will open the $62 mil­lion Gran Chemin Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty in Moru­ga by De­cem­ber or Jan­u­ary. He took um­brage to St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen say­ing that last De­cem­ber’s flood­ing in Bam­boo and St Au­gus­tine was sole­ly due to the Min­istry of Works’ Drainage Di­vi­sion re­gard­ing its riv­er clear­ing, flood mit­i­ga­tion and pumps and gate­way sys­tems main­te­nance. Ameen called on Sinanan to in­di­cate the sta­tus of the promised works at Bam­boo, the St Joseph Riv­er, Gauya­bal Riv­er and as­so­ci­at­ed flood­gates.

The min­is­ter said it was some­times painful to lis­ten to some­one who said flood­ing in Bam­boo and Val­sayn South was the Gov­ern­ment’s fault.

“I won­der if the flood­ing in Chi­na, Eu­rope, all over the world is a re­sult of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have some­thing called cli­mate change where we are get­ting ab­nor­mal weath­er,” he said.

Sinanan said T&T’s his­to­ry shows that Bam­boo and a sec­tion of Val­sayn South that floods were low­er than sea lev­el. When the Ca­roni Riv­er reach­es ca­pac­i­ty, wa­ter backs up through sev­er­al trib­u­taries, caus­ing rain­fall to gath­er in low-ly­ing ar­eas.

“That has been go­ing on even un­der the UNC. We did not say that was UNC’s fault. Flood­ing is not the fault of Gov­ern­ment. Gov­ern­ments have been spend­ing mon­ey on flood mit­i­ga­tion from in­cep­tion. You did it when you were there,” he said.

He added Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to spend and told Ameen that she would see work on pumps in Bam­boo, banks on the Guaya­bal Riv­er and the main drain in Val­sayn if she drove through her con­stituen­cy. Sinanan said the min­istry is al­so re­build­ing the banks of the Ca­roni Riv­er and rais­ing it in some parts.

“I en­cour­age the mem­ber: take a dri­ve, go and see con­trac­tors on the ground at this point in time, build­ing banks and pro­tect­ing the area... Maybe I will come to take a dri­ve with you. Maybe I will come to in­tro­duce you to the con­stituen­cy of St Au­gus­tine a lit­tle bit.”