By RANOBA BAOA
MWH Global, the consulting company working with the Fiji Roads Authority, says it will ensure that our roading infrastructure is built for durability and longevity.
This is after it identified in the 18 months it has worked to establish the authority that there is a big backlog of undone work from years past.
This was through lack of proper management under the old Department of National Roads, combined with money not being used on roads because of leakages and corruption.
MWH Fiji Branch and Roading Network manager, Mike Rudge, said getting rid of the backlog would take about seven years or even longer.
“It took about a year to establish the Fiji Roads Authority with a lot of back log catching up,” he said.
“The past year was the first year we did back log catching up as the Fiji Roads Authority.
“This year there’s going to be a bit more and as you start seeing the general road network will improve.”
Mr Rudge said reason for backlog was management issues from the old Department of National Roads.
He also highlighted there was a lot of leakage or corruption issues which meant the money disappeared and didn’t hit the roads.
“So those are combined reasons and that’s why Fiji’s roads are at the condition they are at the moment,” he said.
Findings and re-engineering Mr Rudge revealed that their findings had indicated that some of the road infrastructure had not been designed to deliver more than about 30-year or 40-year life.
“One of the things that we’ve done is we are working with both the contractors and also getting our own staff involved in re-engineering some of the bridge designs,” he said.
“And this is to make sure they will last 100 years. The engineering that we’re going into at moment is producing more.”
Meanwhile, MWH Global also presented a cheque of about $20,000 to Fiji Red Cross Society to help its disaster relief work.