Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Pro­gramme Di­rec­tor of the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (PURE) Unit Hay­den Phillip is among nine of­fi­cials ex­pect­ed to be sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave from to­mor­row.

Sources con­firmed that the of­fi­cials have not been dis­missed, con­trary to cir­cu­lat­ing ru­mours.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment by Guardian Me­dia, Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John de­clined to dis­cuss the mat­ter, say­ing ques­tions should be di­rect­ed to the source that pro­vid­ed the ini­tial in­for­ma­tion.

This de­vel­op­ment comes amid height­ened scruti­ny of the min­istry’s op­er­a­tions. In Ju­ly, at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Pe­nal, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) would be asked to re­view da­ta linked to road and drainage projects re­port­ed­ly car­ried out un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

At a sub­se­quent meet­ing in Au­gust, the Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed that in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by PURE sug­gest­ed some projects had is­sues, in­clud­ing in­com­plete work and a lack of prop­er test­ing. She al­so high­light­ed po­ten­tial con­flicts of in­ter­est in cer­tain cas­es.

It re­mains un­clear what prompt­ed the de­ci­sion to send the of­fi­cials on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Phillip de­clined to com­ment.

The PURE unit was es­tab­lished back in 2002 un­der for­mer PNM min­is­ter of works and trans­port Arnold Pig­gott.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion ob­tained from the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, the PURE Unit be­gan as a short- to medi­um-term so­lu­tion to ad­dress dis­tressed roads and has since evolved in­to an en­ti­ty re­spon­si­ble for project man­age­ment ini­tia­tives that “pro­mote healthy roads across the coun­try”.

The unit over­sees the ex­pan­sion of ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture to en­hance road ca­pac­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, pre­vent traf­fic con­ges­tion, and im­prove the safe­ty of dri­vers and pedes­tri­ans. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the unit plans and con­structs al­ter­na­tive ac­cess around road con­struc­tion sites to min­imise traf­fic con­ges­tion through cen­tral busi­ness dis­tricts and is re­spon­si­ble for slope sta­bil­i­sa­tion to en­sure the link­ages be­tween com­mu­ni­ties. It is al­so re­spon­si­ble for con­struct­ing pedes­tri­an over­pass­es.

Projects un­der­tak­en by the unit in­clud­ed the con­struc­tion of a third lane of the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way be­tween Ch­agua­nas and Chase Vil­lage (south­bound), the La­dy Hailes Av­enue widen­ing project in San Fer­nan­do, the Diego Mar­tin pedes­tri­an over­pass, and up­grade works on the road­way from Va­len­cia to To­co.