The Government is being urged to review its contract for the rehabilitation of section one of the Junction main road, which is already several years behind its original completion deadline and fraught with geotechnical and contractor capability issues.

Public Defender Arlene Harrison Henry, while lamenting the numerous deadline extensions, also cited safety concerns on Tuesday, at a meeting of Parliament’s Infrastructure and Physical Development Committee which received an update from the National Works Agency (NWA) on the progress of the project.

“Even now we are getting a new projected date. Whilst we talk about the rehabilitation of the road, we have failed to recognise the impact that this rehabilitation, which is necessary, has had on the communities that have been affected… we would urge that we consider a review of this particular contract, and we are not making any issue as to how the contract was awarded — we want a follow-up on this, so that this contract can meet this revised completion date. We believe it is time enough,” she insisted.

Contractor Surrey Paving and Aggregate Limited has been given until next month to complete the remaining four per cent of the works due on the now $1.117-billion project, which started in November 2017 for an initial sum of $597.7 million.

Harrison Henry said she was doubtful that the 75-year life of the Chovey corridor, which the NWA has promised, will manifest.

“We continue to have concerns about that hillside that has been cut in the Broadgate area, as to whether or not it will stand up to the 75-year period, and we continue to express concern that even the toe walls have been languishing in the sun, uncovered, exposed to the elements month after month,” she said.

Following the award of the contract for rehabilitation of the Agualta Vale to Broadgate section of the road, a deep slope failure occurred in September 2020 along Chovey road, which has experienced numerous failures over the years.

Because the failure occurred after the award of the civil works contract, the road was temporarily fixed under a separate contract of $321.3 million with Surrey Paving and Aggregate, in December 2020, made to carry out stabilisation works, and a permanent engineering solution.

Chief executive officer of the NWA E G Hunter explained that one of the issues that accounted for a significant portion of the increase in the budget for the works was that the original contract provided for material cut from the hillside to be used as filling.

However, the cuts were unsuitable for the intended purpose, and the material had to be sourced elsewhere, resulting in changes in the 4.8-kilometre project.

He reasoned that the soil investigation done for the contract was not exhaustive, but argued that, with the evidence of stability available at the time, the decision was taken to start the project.

“You have one of two options — you can either spend a lot of money at the design stage to get the perfect information before you go to construction, [but] you pay for that, and you don’t get to construction, or you can get a certain amount of information to inform a construct and then make adjustments during the construction period, and that is a perfectly plausible way of implementing projects,” he stated.

Hunter argued that the notion of having all the right conditions before starting a project was not practical, came at a cost, and gave no guarantee that once the works begin there will be no challenges.

But Harrison Henry argued that, while there is value in starting the work as soon as possible, it would have been better to conduct the full spectrum of soil analysis.

“It would be better to get the soil test and all of those other materials in hand before the hillside is cut,” she said, pointing to a geotechnical assessment commissioned by her office, and the resulting report shared with the NWA.

— Alphea Sumner