Road patching machines to help with ‘slapdash’ approach to pothole repairs

The Transport and Works ministry is looking to acquire two additional pothole patching machines to improve road fixing standards in this island.

Admitting that a “slapdash” approach has been taken to pothole patching at times, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport, Works and Water Resources Santia Bradshaw stated the machines would help with a cleaner process.

“I was actually looking at the different techniques for pothole patching, because as you know, there is one way of doing it where you put it [patching material] on the back of the open back truck, and the guys obviously don’t necessarily want to stay doing that type of work for very long. So you find that the work gets done very quickly and not necessarily very well at times.

“You also have the pothole patching machines, which is a lot cleaner, and in this year’s estimates, we have been able to budget for an additional two pothole patching machines to be able to assist with the efforts of the pothole patching team,” she said.

Disclosing that her ministry will be patching potholes on several roads that should be fully reconstructed due to government’s fiscal constraints, she stressed that the issue regarding the standard of the patch will not only be corrected by getting equipment, but also in training personnel.

“I do feel, and I’ve seen it across the ministry, that we have to pay attention to standards. We have to look at how we do what we do and to have a standard across the depots that people can say ‘the ministry is consistently doing things in a particular way’.

“What we have some times is a slapdash approach – whether to pothole patching or to blocking a road or to any other area within the ministry – by some people, not all of them, which is an area that I am mindful that we have to train and retrain and retool people in order to be able to do things better and to use the techniques better,” she added.

Questioned during Tuesday’s Estimates on the ministry’s timeline for road projects, the Deputy PM noted that delays in starting roadworks could be avoided if an adjustment could be made for the earlier disbursement of funds.

Bradshaw took the stance that funds needed to be paid out to her ministry as early as possible within the financial year to prevent projects from being pushed into the rainy
season.

“We are operating in a different environment now, where we don’t have the luxury of waiting till the end of the first quarter to see the first disbursement of money. What we have to do is to recognize that the first quarter, which begins on the first of April, presents some challenges if we don’t see the funds quite early on. Simply put, it means that if we are to execute the programmes before the climate change issues impact the country, then perhaps the Ministry of Finance needs to take a deeper, closer look at how it allocates funds to the Ministry of Public Works because by June, July, we’re in the throes of the hurricane season, and a lot of the work that we would want to do is then obviously impeded. We obviously do not have the luxury during the rainy season of doing a lot of the roads,” she said. (JB)