MIDH Meets Challenges with Repair Work on Philip Goldson Highway

Evondale Moody

Moody also brought us up to speed with the repair works being carried out further up near mile seven on the Philip Goldson Highway, where a portion of the highway was washed away some time ago. He informed that the ministry has faced some challenges with that project.

Evondale Moody, Engineering Coordinator, MIDH

“We had to go through a lengthy process to obtain a contractor, so we had to go through the full procurement process. We went through that, we were able to procure a contractor to do those works, which is M&M Engineering Consultant. The works have progressed so far; relatively slow for the mere reason that we had some issues with the fabrication of the sheet piles because we had delays in the construction of the form work to produce those piles because of the acquisition of steel and so forth that we need from outside Belize. So we had some delays there. We encountered little challenges after that in respect to the fabrication of the piles. We have approximately a hundred and seventy-two piles that we have to fabricate. To date we’ve completed about ninety percent of that and we have commenced with the installation of those piles as well. One of the challenges that we have encountered driving the piles now is that there is significant debris in the river that we have to remove. We don’t know about the debris until we start driving the piles. So that has delayed us a little bit in the driving and installation of the piles. We’re hoping that we could pick up some momentum going forward with that and try and get those piles completed within the next fifteen to twenty days.”