The Inter-American Development Bank has approved US$33 million for the government's US$40 million investment in the Mahaica-Rosignol road rehabilitation project and consultants and contractors have been short-listed for the project expected to start in May.

Transport and Hydraulics Minister, Anthony Xavier, yesterday indicated that the loan agreement for the project, approved in November, was to be signed shortly. The technical specifications, he said, have been completed, setting out the design of the road as well as the tender documents.

Today six short-listed consultants are due for a pre-bid meeting with the ministry and they are to be taken on a site visit before they are asked to submit technical and financial proposals for supervision services.

Next week, the short-listed contractors will be here for a pre-bid meeting and will have 90 days to submit their bids to rehabilitate the 41-kilometre stretch of road between Mahaica and Rosignol.

The short-listed contractors are Trinidadian firms Aztec Asphalt Partners, Dipcon Engineering, Siriram Brothers and Trinidad Contractors Ltd; Nabi and Rayside (a coalition of Guyanese and Barbadian interests), Spring Point Managers and Western Industrial Contractors, representing Bahamian and Canadian interests and Jose Cartellone from Argentina. The short-listed consultants are Canadian firms Cansult, GAEA Engineering, SNC Lavalin Intl and Trow Consultancy; Stanley Consultants of the US and Roughton International of the UK.

The project, which has to be financed by US$7 million in counterpart funds, is to run over four years and includes an institutional strengthening component for the executing ministry (Transport and Hydraulics) valued at US$7.6 million.

Xavier indicated that this component covered the establishment of a Work Services Group which is effectively a merger of all the project execution units within the ministry to design and implement all contracts for investment and maintenance of roads, bridges and sea defences. This group will also be responsible for investment, maintenance and planning of public works.

The minister said that the group would utilise the resources available to it in a more effective way and allow for savings as there would be one coordinating unit. Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran, had called for one Project Execution Unit at the ministry in his report on the suspected stone scam a year ago, as he had felt that resources were being wasted with different units executing public projects and there was a lack of accountability.

The IDB, whose finances were abused in a road project investigated by the Auditor General, is of the view that the Work Services Group will rationalise the use of public resources and will establish a model that could be used for the modernisation of other public sector entities.

The project will also cover with US$3.2 million a feasibility and design study for investments to improve the southern access into the city from the East Bank, Xavier said. This, he said, could mean access via Mandela Avenue or even Ogle, depending on the finding of the study. This component would also cover the rehabilitation of the New Amsterdam to Crabwood Creek road. Consultants are being short-listed for preliminary and final designs of this project.

The minister anticipates that a road will connect Mandela Avenue, via the cane fields, to the Soesdyke-Linden Highway with adjoining roads to link this main stretch to villages along the East Bank. It is also anticipated that the roads where the river has encroached will be closed such as at Grove, Craig, Hope and Friendship.

The major component of the loan, US$24 million, will go to rehabilitate the Mahaica to Rosignol road. The proposed road rehabilitation works will include pavement, shoulder strengthening, widening and the improvement of drainage works, construction of curbs, sidewalks and parking lanes in priority areas and installation of traffic signs and pavement markings as well as road lighting and other safety elements. The direct cost of the road improvements is estimated at US$21.5 million of which US$6 million will be used to improve highway safety.

Additionally, the project is to see the restart of the weight control programme, which was halted in 1997 when portable scales used in the project became inoperable. The government is asking for the project to recommence the safeguard to the road investment and it will see six permanent weight stations established. This is expected to reduce damage caused by overweight vehicles to the road network and lead to lower road maintenance costs.

But before the loan is disbursed, the IDB wants to see that the Work Services Group fully staffed, with a financial management system to carry out the project activities and a budget which includes the counterpart funds for the project for the first year. Additionally, the necessary consultants are to be hired.

The loan has an amortization period of 40 years, a grace period of ten years, a disbursement period of 60 months and carries one per cent interest in the grace period and two per cent thereafter. The inspection and supervision fees are one per cent and the credit fee is half of a per cent.