Padarath blames ageing pipelines for damage in Maraval, Diego Martin

KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has promised to ac­cel­er­ate the re­place­ment of age­ing wa­ter pipelines this fi­nan­cial year, as re­cur­ring leaks con­tin­ue to dam­age roads in Diego Mar­tin and Mar­aval.

Padarath said the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing un­der­ground in­fra­struc­ture was re­spon­si­ble for re­peat­ed leaks and de­lays in road re­in­state­ment, leav­ing mo­torists frus­trat­ed as re­pairs some­times failed to last more than a few weeks.

He made the com­mit­ment dur­ing Wednes­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment, in re­sponse to Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga, who raised con­cerns about de­lays in re­in­stat­ing roads af­ter WASA com­pletes leak re­pairs.

De No­bri­ga wel­comed a $4.5 mil­lion in­crease un­der the road re­in­state­ment al­lo­ca­tion but ques­tioned whether the ad­di­tion­al fund­ing was dis­trib­uted by re­gion or man­aged di­rect­ly by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA).

He said one of the ma­jor con­cerns in his con­stituen­cy was the time tak­en to re­pair leaks, fol­lowed by fur­ther de­lays in restor­ing the af­fect­ed roads.

Padarath ac­knowl­edged the re­cur­ring prob­lems, point­ing to Mar­aval Road, the Diego Mar­tin Main Road and the West­ern Main Road as ar­eas where res­i­dents and mo­torists have ex­pe­ri­enced dif­fi­cul­ties.

“The chal­lenge in some of these ar­eas has been the out­dat­ed, di­lap­i­dat­ed in­fra­struc­ture,” he said.

Padarath said there had been three at­tempts to re­store an un­der­ground pipeline in Mar­aval, on­ly for the prob­lem to re­turn with­in a week or so.

He said some pipelines had not been re­placed for decades and would con­tin­ue to cause prob­lems un­til they were up­grad­ed.

“I do give you the as­sur­ance that in this fi­nan­cial year there will be the ac­cel­er­a­tion in terms of the change out of some of these aged, old, and di­lap­i­dat­ed pipelines that cre­ates the prob­lem,” Padarath said.

He said the re­peat­ed fail­ures meant WASA had to car­ry out fur­ther re­pairs, fol­lowed by road re­in­state­ment, adding to the frus­tra­tion of mo­torists us­ing the af­fect­ed routes.

Padarath said he was work­ing with the Min­istries of Works and In­fra­struc­ture and Trans­port to ad­dress the prob­lems and re­duce the im­pact on road users.

De No­bri­ga said he want­ed fur­ther dis­cus­sions on the Diego Mar­tin Main Road, which he de­scribed as a ma­jor traf­fic artery, in­clud­ing both road re­in­state­ment and the is­sues raised by Padarath.

He said the mat­ter would be re­vis­it­ed dur­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of the de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme.