Jagdeo demands credible answers over fallen electricity poles in South Ruimveldt

Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has pledged to hold the Ministry of Public Works and the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc. accountable for the collapse of utility poles along the Aubrey Barker Road, South Ruimveldt, Georgetown.

The incident occurred last week, plunging residents into darkness for more than 24hrs. GPL confirmed that approximately 2,000 households were affected.

The incident “caused me great grief and made me infuriated”, Jagdeo said during his weekly press conference today.

He noted that while accidents occur, “this was not an ordinary accident” and one which the Ministry of Public Works and GPL must “give credible explanations” for.

The Vice President said his own investigation revealed that the concrete poles were not laid according to specifications. He is unsure whether this is as a result of a design flaw or the faulty execution of the project.

“[Ministry of] Public Works needs to say who designed this, what was the contractor paid for, whether it’s a design fault or the contractor did not comply with design and which engineer supervised this and allowed this to happen,” he posited.

Visibly upset, Jagdeo said public infrastructure must be done to last years into the future and therefore, those responsible for such substandard work must be held accountable.

“It’s time that we start terminating people who are paid by the Government to oversee work that should’ve been done properly. People have to be blacklisted or fired for this sort of thing or it’s never going to change…either the contractor did not do their work properly and [this means] they had to do it with the complicity of others,” he contended.

The concrete electricity poles were erected following the relocation of the power lines to facilitate the ongoing expansion of the Aubrey Barker road. Similar works are ongoing across the country, and the VP is also cautioning contractors to desist from causing discomfort to people for long periods.

“Why would you allow the road contractor to dig out the entire stretch of drain to discomfort people from getting into their yards, why not do it two blocks at a time and then build the concrete drains? I see it happens everywhere – they discomfort people all the time when they can do it differently,” he explained.