Gov’t to fund tar-sealing of road due to delay by Solomon Water roadwork

The east bound road from the Ministry of Fisheries to the Telekom roundabout at Ranadi has been removed from the Kukum Highway Phase Two Project due to Solomon Water’s on-going work there. As a result, the government will now fund the remaining stretch of road work which will be carried out by a local company, deputy prime and minister of Infrastructure Development Manasseh Maelanga told parliament on Monday.

The part of road was covered under the Japanese funding through JICA–but Maelaga said that was removed from the the Kukum Highway phase 2 project because Solomon Water is still installing its sewerage line on the road.

The road work carried out by Kitano was completed on 28 September and was officially handed over to the government on October 10.

Maelaga said since Solomon Water had carried out sewerage work it was not possible for Kitano to complete the job in the contracted time.

He added they tried to negotiate with JICA but they declined because Solomon Water had delayed the time allocated for the completion of the project.

Maelanga explained that because of the delay by Solomon Water, SIG has to step in and fund the completion on the project.

He confirmed that work on the sewerage system by Solomon Water should be completed by now and EMCO has been awarded the contract to tar-seal that patch of road from Ministry of Fisheries to the Ranadi roundabout.

Road work by Solomon Water on that side of road has caused traffic jam in the eastern side since the beginning of the year.

It is not known how much will the government spend on the tarsealing of the road due to Solomon Water’s delay.