CONTRACTS totalling $152 million were signed at the Ministry of Transport and Works Thursday, for the routine maintenance of 4,085 kilometres of roadways in 13 parishes over the next four months, under phases five and six of the routine maintenance programme.

The work will be done on 500 road sections in every parish except Kingston.

Work will include bushing of the sides of the roads, as well as cleaning culverts, catch basins, parallel and perpendicular drains. Minor landslips and debris will also be removed and potholes will be patched, said Transport Minister, Robert Pickersgill.

He added that because it was far more costly to rehabilitate than to maintain a road, special attention would have to be paid to removing debris and other deposits and growths which may damage the roads.

“The importance of road maintenance programmes is probably best demonstrated by pointing out that the maintenance of one kilometre of road, which helps prolong the life of that road, costs approximately $150,000 compared with $4 million to rehabilitate that same one kilometre of road,” he said.

Pickersgill argued that the ongoing road improvement programme had impacted positively on communities islandwide, but because of the vast network, all that needed to be done could not be undertaken at the same time, making maintenance all the more important.

The contracts signed Thursday will be paid out of a road fund, which would ensure guaranteed payments to the contractors on a timely basis, he said, promising to provide further details on the fund next week.

And he warned the 31 contractors participating in Thursday’s signing that “shoddy work” would not be tolerated as emphasis was being placed on quality assurance resulting in millions of dollars being paid to consultants not only to design but to monitor and supervise the roadwork.

Ivan Anderson, the chief executive officer of the National Works Agency (NWA), also emphasised the importance of quality assurance.

“Last year we did in excess of 5,000 tests on verifying the quality of the marl coming from quarries, verifying the compaction of marl, verifying the rate at which bitumen was being spread. We have elaborate assurance (measures) to make sure we get quality work for the money,” Anderson said.

The routine road maintenance programme, which is in its third year, initially had emphasis on bushing but the amount of patching done has significantly increased.

Anderson said because of the success of the programme, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) had agreed to support it. He said the remaining 14 contracts which were not awarded yesterday, would be signed over the next four weeks.

Road sections slated for work under phase five of the routine maintenance programme include:

* Bull Bay to Grants Pen, Trinityville to Cedar Gap and Golden Grove to Dalvey Housing scheme main roads in St Thomas;

* Rio Grande to Hope Bay, Port Antonio to Nonsuch and Fair Prospect to Folly main roads in Portland;

* Alligator Pond to Gut River, Spur Tree to Mandeville and Mispha to Bellefield main road in Manchester;

* The Grange Hill to Little London, Lambs River to Seaforth Town, Ferris Cross to Mackfield and Whitehouse to Petersfield main roads are also to be maintained in Westmoreland;

* The May Pen to Soursop turn, Mocho to Frankfield and James Hill to Sandy River roads are to be worked on in Clarendon;

* As well as the Junction to Bull Savannah, Black River to Pedro Cross and Flagaman to Roundhill roads in St Elizabeth.