Government has already spent $37.3 million on traffic improvements in Warrens, St Michael and its environs.
That’s according to the latest Barbados economic half-year review recently released by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. Work is being done under the Warrens Traffic Safety Improvement Project and by May the above sum was spent, the report said.
The project involving improvements to roads and related infrastructure started in January 2011 and was expected to cost $44.6 million.
Work was divided into three sections – “Highway 2 Green Hill to Jackson”, “Warrens Industrial Estate”, and “Highway 2A to Redmans Village”.
“The Lodge Hill link road was completed with the construction of a roundabout and new roadways. In the Jackson/Highway 2 access road, the civil works and the roundabout were completed. The D’Arcy Scott Roundabout, the road widening and the retaining wall with the entrance to the Chefette restaurant was completed,” researchers in the Economic Affairs Division’s Research and Planning Unit reported.
The Warrens improvements were part of several infrastructural projects on which work has been taking place this year.
However, the report noted that “in the first half of 2014, no new loans were signed and despite the current economic and financial environment the Public Sector Investment Programme continued”.
“The major investments in 2014 were concentrated in the areas of infrastructure, roads, the environment, and institutional strengthening and capacity building.”
Other projects under way this year included the St John Polyclinic ($25.3 million). This was in addition to ventures “partially financed” by the Inter-American Development Bank, including the Water and Sanitation System Upgrade Project ($97 million), Sustainable Energy Investment Programme, Coastal Risk Assessment and Management Programme, Barbados Competitiveness Programme, Modernisation of the Barbados Statistical Services, and Modernisation of the Barbados National Procurement System. (SC)
