Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves has expressed interest in the restructuring of the national road repair program. He did so during an interview on WEFM’s Issue At Hand program, where he pinpointed the area of human resources, and how long plans take to become a reality due to issues related to that area.
The Finance Minister said he has expressed this to Minister of Transport and Works Montgomery Daniel, requesting that new road program be formulated next year.
“People think sometimes that the road hasn’t been fixed because the Government doesn’t have money, but, very often, there is money. Money is sitting there waiting to be spent but this or that engineer or this or that quantity surveyor hasn’t signed off or hasn’t completed the estimates that needed to be completed for the work to be done,” he said.
He continued “What I would like to do in the coming year is inject additional resources into the road program but that includes restructuring and reimagining the way that the human resource pipeline works to get these things from concept to reality as quickly as possible.
That is something that I have asked Minister Daniel who is the Minister of Works, I’ve asked him to formulate a different program next year, not just “well we just gave BRAGSA $16 million and let them go to work””.
The Finance Minister said he wants to have a road program that is more methodical, and structured so that road repairs can be executed in a more efficient manner.
Minister Gonsalves also expressed disappointment at the lack of progress that had been made with regards to the Kuwait road program, saying that he it has not developed in the way that the Government had expected.