– Update on new roads to be announced FridayFor the year 2014, the Ministry of Public Works recorded the spending of $604M for the maintenance of 359 kilometres of roads within Regions two, three, four,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, five, six and all major public roads.Vlissengen Road, Irving Street, Mandela Avenue,Wholesale Cheap Jerseys, Duncan Street, Soesdyke/Linden Highway, Homestretch Avenue, University of Guyana road,China NFL Jerseys, Irving Street, Water Street, Carifesta Avenue, Sea Wall Road, Railway Embankment; Camp Road, Barrack Street, West Coast Demerara, East Coast Demerara and East Bank Demerara roads, were some of the thoroughfares identified and upgraded.Bentinck Street, east of Water StreetWorking with a budget of $13.7B to improve roads and bridges; $12.9B went towards roads and $844.2M for bridges. Less than $1B was spent on road maintenance.At a special conference on Friday, the Ministry will announce the construction of new roads and the distances attained when it updates the public on the agency’s performance in the last year.According to the government agency’s report, works conducted on the existing roads included minor rehabilitation of local failure; pothole patching; crack fill longitudinal/transverse/edge cracks; levelling and apply thin overlay to rutting; minor rehabilitation of local failure; surface seal block cracking; road safety maintenance (road marking and signs); cleaning or clearing of existing drains; grading and shaping of road shoulders; and revetment installation.The Ministry said that “routine maintenance by the agency’s Force Account Unit (FAU) on all declared public roads reduced travelling time; road marking will help to make the roads safer; there will be a reduction of vehicle operation cost; an extension of the service life of the road and increase driving comfort.”Heading north on Water StreetHead of the agency’s FAU,Jerseys Cheap NFL, and Civil Engineer, Lawrence Mentis related that “works completed so far include cleaning the roads’ drains, culverts and the reconstruction of its pavement from white sand/sand clay to finish asphalt concrete.”He said that works to be completed include the installation of culverts, priming and tacking coats of roads and the laying of asphalt concrete.However, the Public Works Ministry is not the only agency involved in the construction of roads within the country, and opposition members have viewed this as an obstruction to properly networking the country. For example, as a means of accessing the recently constructed La Parfaite Harmonie, housing area on the West Bank of Demerara, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) under the Housing and Water Ministry commissioned a 3.5 kilometres of access road costing $604M last September.Opposition members, like many other citizens, have had constant cause to question and even protest the work done on roads and the contracts awarded.During last year’s budget presentation A Partnership of National Unity (APNU)’s Shadow Public Works Minister Joseph Harmon dealt specifically with the practice of having different agencies construct roads. He said the practice should stop, and one minister should be responsible for this area. He had stated that in Guyana the construction of roads and bridges is not limited to the Ministry of Public Works, but is divided among other entities such as the Ministries of Housing and Natural Resources and the Environment.This, he said, contributes to communities being exposed to different qualities of roads and contractors are allowed to get away with bad practices while citizens’ complaints are not heeded. He had hinted also possible difficulty in identifying the actual amount of tax dollars used in road building, maintenance.Harmon had noted that in 2012, Government said it would have invested $11.8B on roads and bridges,NFL Jerseys China, but only $9.4B was spent. In 2013, Government was to invest $12.6B to further improve roads and bridges and only $11.3B of that amount was expended.“In 2014, we are investing $13.7B to improve roads and bridges and once the pattern holds true,Wholesale NBA Jerseys China, the full sum will not be spent…” he had further stated.Another APNU member and Parliamentarian, Annette Ferguson, had also asserted in her budget presentation that the sum of $11.2B was spent in 2012 on roads and in 2013, a total of $11.3B was spent, “yet there has been no significant improvement in the rehabilitating, reconstruction and repairing of the roads.”The APNU member had reiterated the coalition’s position that only through Local Government Elections can change come in the way road networking can truly b