Date Published:
16 Jan 2020
Following the award of a contract to rehabilitate the approximately 12 kilometer stretch from Georgia to Cedar Valley, in St. Thomas, earlier this month, the entire 27 kilometer corridor between the Morant Bay Roundabout and Cedar Valley is now under contract to be reconstructed.
Approximately 2.7 – billion dollars is to be spent on the Cedar Valley Road. A contract valued at just under 1.2 – Billion dollars was signed in November for the rehabilitation of the first 14.5 kilometer stretch from Morant Bay to Georgia. The agreement for the section of road from Georgia to Cedar Valley valued at 1.53 – Billion dollars was recently signed. The road is being rehabilitated as part of the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project (SCHIP).
National Works Agency (NWA) Communication and Customer Services Manager, Stephen Shaw, explains that the signing of this latest contract brings the total number of packages under the first phase of the SCHIP to five. The other packages include that from Morant Bay to Prospect, Hordley to Long Road and Manchioneal to Fair Prospect in Portland.
Preliminary activities have started in relation to these packages to include in-depth land surveys, the construction of site offices and the completion of land acquisition, where required. It is expected that civil works under the current phase of the project will commence before the end of this financial year.
Pipe-line contracts are to be executed concurrently with the civil works contracts. The road work packages which are valued at a combined 5.36 billion Jamaican dollars are being executed by five local contractors as part of a larger contract with China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC).
