Senior Reporter
dareece.polo@guardian.co.tt
Bad roads caused by repair works undertaken by the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) will soon be a thing of the past. This assurance comes from WASA after its officials signed an agreement with Lake Asphalt at the authority’s St Joseph head office yesterday.
“We are asking you to hold strain for a bit longer, but relief is on the way,” said WASA chairman Ravindra Nanga.
The company is hoping that this newly minted agreement with Lake Asphalt will ensure that it has access to the materials required for road restoration. WASA has moved to purchase asphalt in bulk for the first time. Deputy chairman Alston Fournillier, who was also present at the event, acknowledged that there are more than 9,000 leaks that require road restoration across the country. However, he could not provide details on the cost to taxpayers.
“So, we are tackling those 9,000 leaks, but it’s not in one concentrated area. So, let’s say 30 per cent may be in the northwest, 20 per cent may be in Central, Tobago might be 15 per cent and the others spread equally among the region, so to tell you a figure may be difficult at this time.” Nanga said the agreement was long overdue, echoing a sentiment expressed by Lake Asphalt’s chairman, Neil Mohammed.
“Unfortunately, we were faced with a shortage of material, so that was impacting our ability to effectively put a dent in the road restorations,” Nanga said.
The WASA chairman added that this was compounded by difficulties in accessing the asphalt. Simply put, the Ministry of Works and Transport (MOWT) was prioritised alongside other contractors that were purchasing larger amounts of pitch.
The chairman admitted that WASA had a bad reputation for digging up roads after a road paving exercise by the MOWT. He blamed the heavy machinery used in those exercises, which damaged its aged infrastructure.
Nanga added that failing to properly compact dug-up areas was a huge part of the problem. Nonetheless, he said WASA has begun identifying critical pipelines that require replacement. He said the authority has established standard operating procedures for leak repairs to ensure that structural integrity is maintained and leaks do not reoccur.
“We are insisting on proper compaction. What we have found as a board is that one of the issues we face with leaks is that when you repair the leak, the road surface is not properly restored. So, there isn’t sufficient compaction so that leaks would reoccur, but we are tackling that.
“And, we have also given instructions to the CEO, for example, where the ministry of works would have recently paved, in the event that it is necessary to repair a leak there, that priority be given to that road restoration so that you do not see unsightly patches where the ministry of works would have recently repaved their works,” he added.
If there are plans for new roadways to be constructed, WASA intends to run a utility corridor to reroute its systems off the roadway.
‘They need qualified experts to do the job’
However, former head of the Trinidad and Tobago Contractors Association, Mikey Joseph, said that apart from this deal, WASA requires qualified experts to effect a proper road restoration exercise. “WASA and a lot of the other utilities and even some of the private sector people have a strong quality control issue where nobody seems to have the competence to ensure that these things are done, hence the reason for the continued deterioration of road repair areas from these utility companies and even with some of the rehabilitative work done by the private sector on behalf of the Government.”
Back in 2022, Minister of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales said he inherited a situation where 16,000 outstanding road restorations had to be done in T&T. At the time, he said that 10,000 leaks had already been repaired six months into an aggressive leak repair programme.