Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials yes­ter­day vis­it­ed two state-owned road-build­ing en­ti­ties, as the ad­min­is­tra­tion gets ready to ac­cel­er­ate its na­tion­al in­fra­struc­tur­al work dur­ing the cur­rent dry sea­son.

The Prime Min­is­ter and his team vis­it­ed the lime­stone di­vi­sion of the Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny in Blan­chisseuse and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port’s Agua San­ta As­phalt Plant in Waller­field, where they got an up­date on on­go­ing road re­pair and con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty, ac­cord­ing to a post on the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter’s Face­book page.

The lime­stone di­vi­sion gen­er­ates foun­da­tion­al ma­te­ri­als for the na­tion’s high­ways, ac­cess roads and oth­er as­phalt sur­faces.

The post in­di­cat­ed that dis­cus­sions fo­cused on in­creas­ing out­put at the fa­cil­i­ty as the Gov­ern­ment ac­cel­er­ates its in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment plan.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so vis­it­ed the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port’s Agua San­ta as­phalt plant where he wit­nessed first-hand the Min­istry’s re­cy­cling ini­tia­tive.

The post not­ed that the plant pro­duces bi­tu­men sta­bilised ma­te­r­i­al us­ing re­claimed as­phalt pave­ment sourced from the Min­istry stock­piles. Through this process, the Min­istry can ef­fi­cient­ly de­vel­op road in­fra­struc­ture through­out the coun­try at a re­duced cost.

“This re­cy­cled ma­te­r­i­al is be­ing utilised ef­fec­tive­ly for the re­con­struc­tion of the Man­zanil­la-Ma­yaro Road,” ac­cord­ing to the post.

“The Prime Min­is­ter stopped in San­gre Grande where he ob­served the progress of work on the con­nec­tor road link­ing the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way to the East­ern Main Road in Guia­co, San­gre,” the state­ment fur­ther stat­ed.

Row­ley then jour­neyed to Man­zanil­la where he saw the work on the road to Ma­yaro.

The road stretch­es ap­prox­i­mate­ly 26 kilo­me­tres long and con­nects the com­mu­ni­ties of San­gre Grande, Caigual, and Man­zanil­la to Or­toire, Ma­yaro, and Guayagua­yare.

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley was joined by the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Ro­han Sinanan, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, Richie Sookhai, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Kaz­im Ho­sein, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Avinash Singh, chair­man of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO), Her­bert George and oth­er of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Works on yes­ter­day’s tour.

In re­marks at the com­mis­sion­ing of the Diego Mar­tin West­moor­ings In­ter­change, on De­cem­ber 22, 2023, Sinanan said the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port had com­plet­ed al­most 600 road in­fra­struc­ture projects last year.

He said he ex­pect­ed more re­pair projects in the new year in a bid to im­prove the qual­i­ty of T&T’s roads.

“We an­tic­i­pate, with the bless­ing of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, an­oth­er 600 projects for the up­com­ing year un­til we can reach to the point where every road in Trinidad that needs to be re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed is up to the stan­dard we want to ac­cept,” he said.

“Next year, (2024) we’re hop­ing to de­liv­er on the Waller­field to San­gre Grande High­way, again a 1967 plan, and work is apace on the Man­zanil­la-Ma­yaro up­grade road, again hop­ing to de­liv­er by Feb­ru­ary next year.

“We are stick­ing to our man­date to en­sure that con­nec­tiv­i­ty is main­tained around the coun­try.”

De­liv­er­ing the 2024 bud­get, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said: “In 2024, we will con­tin­ue the roll­out and ac­cel­er­a­tion of our road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gramme, with the tar­get be­ing ALL the roads in Trinidad.

“Over the next two to three years, we will con­tin­ue to roll out projects across the coun­try, in­clud­ing traf­fic al­le­vi­a­tion, road re­con­struc­tion, slope sta­bil­i­sa­tion and bridge re­con­struc­tion.”