In 2022, the Ministry of Works and Transport has been mandated to improve the condition of roads across the country.

In a sit-down interview with Newsday on Thursday at the ministry’s office, Richmond Street, Port of Spain, Minister Rohan Sinanan said this will be done through a multi-agency approach and will include the ministry, the Ministry of Local Government and the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA).

Sinanan mentioned that apart from limitations brought by the pandemic, WASA leaks continue to be a major hurdle in the ministry’s road rehabilitation efforts.

“Ninety per cent of the challenges with the road network is linked to WASA and their problems with their lines. We have 100 leaks popping up daily on our road network and the rate of WASA repairs is not in keeping with what we would like.

“WASA takes too long to attend to the leaks and when they attend the leaks the amount of damage is done to the formation of the road is much more than should have, which would now require major repairs."

He was satisfied with the ministry’s procurement system in 2021 but felt its efforts to maintain and repair roads were very poor.

“The ministry got less over the past years... what we would have applied for but we were able to stretch it… I am still not satisfied and we will have to do a lot of work to ensure we maximise our resources… We intend to spend a lot more time and effort on maintenance meaning vegetation control and patching of our roads.” The ministry got $2.8 billion in the 2021/2022 budget, a decrease from its allocation of $3 billion in the 2020/2021 fiscal year.

Aside from issues with WASA, on the side of the ministry, Sinanan said covid19 played a big part in this setback on road repairs in 2021.

In December the ministry, WASA and regional corporations started working on a collaborative approach to road restoration.

Minister of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales, in an interview with Newsday last week, confirmed WASA is one of the main contributing factors to the state of the road but said, “Any notion that WASA is the only contributor to the state of our road is misleading.”

He said the agency identified its poor response to fix roads after pipeline repairs were done needed to be addressed. He said of 4,000 leaks in TT, his ministry has already fixed 2,000 last year and hoped to have a significant number repaired by the end of January.

Gonzales agreed with the issue of urgent road repairs called for serious collaboration between the ministry, local government and WASA.

“That initiative entails WASA, the ministry and the regional corporation contributing their resources to road restoration, be it equipment, manpower, material. In the first phase, the ministry had purchased a hot mix. This wasn’t only for repairing roads under the ministry, but local government roads, especially potholes that came about from leaks repaired by WASA.

He said with this arrangement WASA was able to use its employees and whatever available equipment along with materials purchased by the ministry to repa