Former works and transport minister Colm Imbert has described Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s promise to build a causeway from Port-of-Spain to Chaguaramas as a new political low, saying that she publicly dismissed the idea when it was presented by the People’s National Movement (PNM) in 2010 as a “waste of time and money.”
At the UNC’s Monday Night Forum in Fyzabad, Persad-Bissessar said if the People’s Partnership returns to government after this year’s general election it would build a causeway along T&T’s northwest peninsular and a highway from San Fernando to Mayaro.
“I give you the assurance tonight that the Partnership Government, post-election 2015, should we form the government, we will build the San Fernando to Mayaro highway.
“I give the assurance tonight that in addition to all the work that will be done in the northwest peninsula, that is Port-of-Spain going to Diego Martin, that should the Partnership form the government, Dr (Bhoe) Tewarie is working on one of the most inspiring projects.
“He has already worked to create the Chaguaramas boardwalk.. .Our Cabinet has already agreed and we will partner with the Canadian Government to look at the feasibility of building a causeway from Port-of-Spain right down to Chaguaramas,” she said.
But in a release yesterday, Imbert said because the UNC had no ideas of its own it intended to campaign for the general election using the PNM’s development plans for T&T.
He said that was a brazen attempted theft of PNM policy, as the project appeared on page 19 of the PNM’s 2010 manifesto.
He added: “The reaction of Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar in 2010, who was the leader of the Opposition at the time, to the PNM’s highways programme was to tear up the PNM manifesto and publicly denounce our national network of highways as a waste of time and money.
“It is with great shock and amazement therefore, that I now see the same individual, who is now Prime Minister, just a few weeks away from a general election and having wasted five years condemning the PNM’s vision for highway construction, shamelessly announcing the same causeway to Chaguaramas as if it were a brand new UNC idea.”
Planning advanced
He said during the period 2007-2010, the PNM government did the necessary planning, engineering and documentation for a comprehensive network of highways, known as the National Network of Highways Programme, which was to be done in phases.
This included the San Fernando to Point Fortin highway and the San Fernando to Mayaro highway, which was scheduled for construction in 2010. A highway from Wallerfield to Manzanilla and the causeway were also carded to begin in 2011, he said. These projects, Imbert said, were announced and status reports given to him at regular intervals in 2009 and 2010.
With respect to the causeway, he said a presentation was made to the PNM’s Ministerial Committee on Infrastructure Works in March 2010 by engineering consultants AECOM.
In that presentation, AECOM presented its findings and recommendations on the design, route alignment, construction method and estimated cost of the causeway and the company was then ordered to invite tenders for the project.
He said if the UNC had followed through with the PNM’s plans, the construction of the causeway would have been well underway by now.