Opposition Member of Parliament, David Patterson who served as Public Infrastructure Minister under the former APNU+AFC government has rebuffed statements made by Works Minister, Bishop Edghill about the quantity and quality of roads being done under the current government.  

Patterson said even though the Coalition government had less money to work with, it did more work at a better quality.

He explained that in areas where the Coalition executed road works, the roads are still in good shape, while roads currently being done are falling apart days after construction.

 “Sir this is what the PPP did with urban roads with five times the budget of the APNU. In 2020, 6.4 kilometers, 2021, 3.6 Kilometers, 2022 18.3 Kilometers. Here is what the coalition did sir, in 2017, 20.2 kilometers, 21.8 kilometers in 2018 and we fell down in 2016 we did 16.6 kilometers. In three years 2017-2019, the coalition administration completed 58 kilometers of road works in urban areas compared to three of the PPP with all the money they have they have only done 28.1 kilometers”, Patterson told the house.

On Wednesday, Minister Edghill said his Ministry has completed 491 kilometers of miscellaneous roads since taking office in August in 2020.

Mr. Patterson admitted that the Coalition was not able to complete that amount of miscellaneous road works due to budget constraints but he said the cost of miscellaneous road works under the PPP government has now doubled from $46 million per kilometer when the coalition left office to $92 million per kilometer now.

 “More than double the cost with half the quality, one can only wonder where the extra money is going. What makes it worse sir in 2022 of the 290 kilometers of roads they said they did, only 55 kilometers were actually completed,” Patterson told the house.

As it relates to the Energy sector, Mr. Patterson said the government is setting itself up for failure with the current construct of the gas-to-energy project.

He noted that the project was conceptualized by the former government, but with the modifications which have been done by the current government, it will cost more than $2 billion more in funding.

Mr. Patterson also touched on the Government’s continued efforts to move ahead with the pricy Amaila Falls hydropower project.

He said there have been multiple studies that determined that the project would not be a feasible one.

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