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Friday, February 28, 2025

'Bad work' on Toco Road leaves Rondon furious

by

20150201

Con­tro­ver­sy is brew­ing over a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar con­tract award­ed to Kalco Ltd to pave the To­co Main Road from Matelot to Shark Riv­er.While chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Ter­ry Ron­don is in­sist­ing that the paving was shod­di­ly done and tax­pay­ers did not get val­ue for mon­ey, for­mer di­rec­tor of high­ways in the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, Roger Ganesh, is main­tain­ing that the work was done up to stan­dard.

On Thurs­day, Ron­don blew his top on the mat­ter, stat­ing that Kalco was pro­vok­ing the res­i­dents of the north­east­ern re­gion.He said mo­torists, res­i­dents, com­muters and pedes­tri­ans had been com­plain­ing to him dai­ly be­cause the road was left in a de­plorable con­di­tion.In 2012, Ron­don said, Kalco was con­tract­ed to pave sev­en miles of the To­co Main Road over a six-month pe­ri­od.

Ron­don said af­ter wait­ing for al­most three years, on­ly three miles of road from Matelot to Shark Riv­er were resur­faced."Then to our shock last Oc­to­ber, Kalco just packed up their equip­ment and left. They are a law un­to them­selves, man. They just ain't care about no­body," an irate Ron­don said.

Ron­don: My hands are tied

To com­pound mat­ters, Ron­don said, while Kalco was in the process of leav­ing the site, a sub­con­trac­tor of Kalco came and dug up por­tions of the road from To­co to Sans Souci and nev­er re­paired it."Kalco has on­ly been play­ing the fool with us and not com­plet­ing the work. Now they leave the peo­ple in Matelot to suf­fer once again. They are pro­vok­ing the peo­ple. They are tak­ing us for grant­ed be­cause we do not burn tyres and protest like oth­er com­mu­ni­ties to get what we want."

Ron­don said he did not be­lieve tax­pay­ers got val­ue for mon­ey.Ad­mit­ting that the road had been ne­glect­ed for years, Ron­don said the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment was not in gov­ern­ment and there was lit­tle he could do.

"Burgess­es feel I have the pow­er un­der the cor­po­ra­tion to fix the road, but that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies in the hands of the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture. My hands are tied. It's pure pol­i­tics the Gov­ern­ment play­ing. There is no doubt that the peo­ple are be­ing side­lined be­cause they sup­port­ed the PNM. The peo­ple will talk vol­umes on elec­tion day."

Ganesh: Kalco has­not aban­doned the job

How­ev­er, Ganesh who re­tired from the min­istry last De­cem­ber gave the as­sur­ance that Kalco "has not aban­doned" the job.Ganesh, whose son-in-law op­er­ates Kalco, was at the helm of the high­ways di­vi­sion when the con­tract was award­ed.Ganesh said on Fri­day that Kalco was await­ing the com­ple­tion of works by T&TEC, WASA and the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (Pure).

"As soon as all those things are sort­ed out...the util­i­ties and so, it will be com­plet­ed. There is not much to be done any­way. It is just about ten per cent to be done. I can as­sure you that with­in a month's time work will be com­plet­ed un­der the con­tract. With­in a month what­ev­er de­fects, if there are any, will be re­paired so there would not be any­thing for any­one to com­plain about."Ganesh said he dis­agreed with Ron­don that the paving was poor­ly done, hav­ing seen the work him­self.

"I am sat­is­fied with the work that has been done so far. Re­mem­ber there are oth­er con­trac­tors work­ing in the area. I am not sure they are talk­ing about Kalco."Un­able to quote the val­ue of the paving con­tract, Ganesh al­so dis­pelled re­ports that a sub­con­trac­tor of Kalco up­root­ed parts of the road and left it."What­ev­er he (Ron­don) told you, that is not cor­rect at all. We are not aban­don­ing any job. We don't have any­thing to hide. Mr Ron­don is paint­ing a wrong pic­ture."

Ganesh said the time frame of Kalco's con­tract was ex­tend­ed due to "un­fore­seen" is­sues."That is the na­ture of civ­il con­struc­tion works. When you deal­ing in ar­eas where WASA can't tell you where their lines run and those sorts of things, you have those prob­lems al­ways crop­ping up."

Phillip: Kalco fin­ishedtheir con­tract a long time

On Fri­day, pro­gramme di­rec­tor of Pure, Hay­den Phillip, said as far as he was aware Kalco had wrapped up its work at the site.


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