By Bampia James Bundu
Project Manager for Well-Guico Sierra Leone Limited has told Politico in Kono district that Koidu City is being constructed with some of the best feeder roads network in the whole of the country. Prosper Noua said that they had enough expertise and equipment to do the work and that they were still bringing their machines from Guinea to Koidu City whilst work was in progress. “We want to speed up work before the rains start, which is likely to cause a bit of delay, especially work on the main road surface”, he said, adding that despite starting work only some three weeks ago, they were very much hopeful that before the rains they would have completed the construction of thirty-nine culverts and three additional bridges. “I want the people of Kono to realise that things have changed in the contract and they should not hesitate to bring to our attention to areas where there are lapses,” he said. The Project Manager assured that the roads would serve for over fifty years if effective maintenance was carried out where necessary, and pledged his company’s commitment to doing an effective and efficient work for Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, some 23 sub-contractors, most of them locals, have been brought in to help with the construction of 16 main roads in Koidu City, among which would be the 5.82 kilometer Kainkordu Road. One of the sub-contractors and a native of Kono, Mustapha Janneh, told Politico that they enjoyed working with their Guinean counterparts. Well-Guico has completed a works yard at Dorma Area where huge equipment was being assembled and a quarry being built, some five miles outside Koidu. The company’s chief engineer, Julius Harding, said they had state-of-the-earth equipment from Guinea to speed up the work. He said the arrival of the asphaltic plant and crusher was indicative of the progress of the work and their commitment to completion. He explained that the asphaltic plant was meant for premixing of tar and other mixtures for road construction, whilst the mobile crusher was brand new equipment that would be taken from one point to another for mainly stone crushing. Councillor Francis Tamba Foyoh recalled that the project almost came to a halt at one point and that almost caused them some serious embarrassment.
