The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

WORKS Minister Desmond Bannister yesterday stressed there were no quick fixes to the country’s road challenges, telling frustrated motorists the task was not an “overnight thing”.

Mr Bannister was repeatedly asked about dilapidated, and pot-hole filled roads in the capital, and throughout the Family Islands, as a guest on Guardian Talk Radio show Off The Record with Zhivargo Laing.

He insisted the constant, ongoing work of his ministry was often overshadowed by the massive nature of problems faced.

“Fixing a road is not an overnight thing,” he said, “it’s not something that you got out and you just look and you pave, it’s a whole lot of engineering that goes into it. There is a whole civil design section, we have sections in the Ministry of Works, they have to go in, they have to look at the roads, they have to determine the condition of the roads, they have to look at different aspects of the engineering of it, and then they make recommendations, and all of this ends of up being computer generated.”

Mr Bannister continued: “They make recommendations, then decisions have to be made with respect to paving so it is not an overnight process. I want everyone to understand this. It’s not something that happens overnight.”

To illustrate his point, Mr Bannister referred roadworks in Nicholls Town, Andros. He said bids were put out for roadwork but there was a greater need to bring water to the community.

“Those communities didn’t have the water that they needed,” he said, “and so you needed to have contractors come in there and engineers look at how you deal with water piping and all the rest of it.

“So there may be some concerns in those communities with respect to the nature of the work going, but it’s not simply road work they’re doing, they’re trying to ensure that those communities have water in every single home over the next 50, 60 years.”