Kamla: PNM Rapid Rail to cost US$10 billion
By Richardson Dhalai (Newsday).
As she formally opened the $30 million Debe Interchange to Gandhi Village, part of the Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension to Point Fortin, yesterday, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar slammed the Opposition PNM’s Rapid Rail Project saying it would cost just over $60 billion and not $10billion as was being touted by the PNM.
PNM Diego Martin North East candidate and former Works Minister, Colm Imbert, at a recent political meeting at Guaico, said the railway, according to his cost estimates, would cost as much as the San Fernando to Point Fortin highway.
“The cost of the railway from Diego Martin to Sangre Grande is the same price as the cost of the highway from San Fernando to Point Fortin — $10 billion...
and they take cost of the railway and multiply by six.
It is TT$10 billion and they say it is TT$60 billion, they told you that to make you afraid,” he contended.
At the event opening yesterday, Persad- Bisessar, citing a feasibility study conducted by DBOM contractors on the Rapid Rail project, said that the $500million study found the project’s capital cost outweighed the economic benefits of the rapid rail project.
“We spent $500 million dollars on a study to tell us that they are unable to produce a design that is economically feasible but more, the capital cost of the project outweigh the estimated cost benefits by over 50 percent,” Persad- Bissessar said.
“They are making another promise of a rapid rail project with a very huge cost, they are linking that rapid rail project by saying that it will only cost them $10 billion. But when the Rapid Rail project speaks of $10 billion, it says US dollars and when you multiply by six, it is TT$60 billion,” she pointed out.
“My legacy will not be in tall buildings but in hospitals and schools and that is why over the past five years we have built over 100 schools,” she added.
And, without identifying Highway Reroute Movement, leader Dr Wayne Kublalsingh by name, the Prime Minister also expressed relief that he had not died some 200 days after embarking on a hunger strike against the Debe to Mon Desir highway segment.
“I thank God that 200 odd days later, he is still alive,” she said, adding, “but I also thank God that I had the courage and the strength and the faith.
I could not let one or two or three stop the progress of the majority of the people and that is what democracy is about.” “The majority will determine how we go and I took that vision and said we will build that highway and we will continue to build it,” she said.
NIDCO president Dr Carson Charles, also speaking yesterday, said approximately 55 percent of the $7.5 billion highway had been completed and would accelerate the work to be completed in 2016.
Charles said a water management study had also been commissioned regarding flooding in the area.
He said the highway would not contribute to additional flooding in the area.