Jusamco wins $280 million Mosquito Creek highway project

JUSAMCO Pavers Ltd has won a $280 million contract to complete Package 5A of the Point Fortin Highway extension, Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan said yesterday.

This portion of the project, he said, will include works along Mosquito Creek, from the Godinot Bridge to the Mosquito Creek Bridge.

Cabinet made the decision yesterday, Sinanan told reporters at the post-Cabinet media briefing, held at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s. The winning bid came in 6.5 percent lower than the ministry’s $300 million estimate, he added. The completion date is expected to be just in time for the next General Elections– early 2020.

The entire extension project comprises 12 packages he said. Three are almost completed, also by Jusamco, and will be ready to be commissioned in early July, Sinanan said. There are three or four other packages out for tender he said. All the contractors, he was “happy to say” are local.

The Point Fortin highway was originally estimated in 2009 to be $4 billion, Sinanan said, but, had ballooned to $7 billion under the previous administration.

The contractor then was Brazilian firm OAS Construtora, which has since gone bankrupt.

Sinanan was also asked about his potential benefit as a landowner in Curepe, where the government will need to acquire properties for the construction of the proposed Curepe overpass. “Benefitted?

How much I have lost! I have not benefitted.

The whole process of acquisition is handled by the Ministry of Finance. Not the Ministry of Works and it is an ongoing process,” he said.

He hadded that he had owned property there for 15 years and had declared his interests to the Integrity Commission.