Rhon­dor Dowlat

Phase One of the Mara­cas Beach Fa­cil­i­ty Im­prove­ment Project has been com­plet­ed with­in bud­get, at a cost just over $61 mil­lion, de­spite chal­lenges faced by the con­trac­tor - Coos­al’s Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

The project in­cludes a 350-ve­hi­cle carpark, five bus spaces and eight spaces for hand­i­capped peo­ple.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day at the hand­ing over cer­e­mo­ny, Group Ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, Sie­u­nar­ine Coos­al said the project faced nu­mer­ous co­or­di­na­tion and lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges.

“It was nev­er an op­tion (to close off the area) and pedes­tri­an traf­fic and pub­lic safe­ty was a ma­jor el­e­ment in the day-to-day plan­ning of con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ties,” Coos­al said.

An­oth­er ma­jor chal­lenge, he said, was the un­ex­pect­ed in­clement weath­er pat­tern and flood­ing.

Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Ro­han Sinanan praised Coos­al’s for its time­ly de­liv­ery de­spite the chal­leng­ing rainy sea­son.

“There were many land­slips but Coos­al’s still stood out to bring the project with­in the time and bud­get…and we see the stan­dards…this is not a sim­ple con­tract, it is very tech­ni­cal to get ma­te­r­i­al up here es­pe­cial­ly road paving ma­te­r­i­al but we stand very proud that Coos­al’s was able to de­liv­er,” he said.

Coos­al’s com­menced works in May 2017 af­ter con­struc­tion com­pa­ny - Kall Co was ter­mi­nat­ed from the $120 mil­lion Mara­cas Beach Fa­cil­i­ty Im­prove­ment project, in June last year. An au­dit was or­dered in­to the scope of works done.

Coos­al’s con­tract­ed scope of works in­clud­ed but was not lim­it­ed to the fol­low­ing el­e­ments; clear­ing and grub­bing; re­lo­ca­tion and uti­liza­tion of client is­sued stock­piles; de­mo­li­tion of ex­ist­ing struc­tures; ex­ca­va­tion and fill; con­struc­tion of ac­cess ap­proach­es; road widen­ing; round­about; carpark; drainage; pedes­tri­an walk­ways and all an­cil­lary works such as handrails; light­ing; sig­nage road and carpark mark­ings.

NID­CO chair­man Her­bert George said that all ma­jor works would be com­plet­ed by end of Jan­u­ary. The new waste­water treat­ment plant will, how­ev­er, be com­plet­ed by May.