Gravel, potholes back after rain

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‘No contract in pipeline to repair roads’

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 12: With every rainfall, the flying gravel phenomenon emerges to the surface on most of Kuwait’s roads, and the government inaction is revealed in the face of these “expired” streets that lacks maintenance, which in turn leads to damages to cars, while those in charge play deaf, reports Al-Jarida daily. The Ministry of Public Works threw the ball into the court of the long documentary cycle, revealing a resounding surprise.

According to informed sources in the ministry, there are currently no contracts related to the maintenance of the streets. The contracts that were finally approved by the Ministry of Finance need about a year for the documentary cycle to end for those contracts. The ministry is coordinating with the municipality and some agencies to clear the loose gravel on some roads. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent on the roads that have not been subject to maintenance for years due to the lack of contracts for these streets, and they have expired, resulting in asphalt peeling and gravel flying during the rainy season.

This phenomenon began appearing in 2014 and has recently been observed to have increased on some highways and some areas, in addition to the presence of potholes after the recent rains in the country. The ministry has made an inventory of those dilapidated streets and roads, in addition to the roads under maintenance and new roads, but there is no benefit from that inventory as long as there are no maintenance contracts to repair those streets. There are many areas whose streets have not been maintained so far, and there are many areas whose streets have been maintained due to which this phenomenon does not exist at all in those areas. The sources asked, “How can streets be repaired without maintenance contracts?”

They revealed that the ministry periodically receives hundreds of complaints due to potholes, flying gravel, and problems with bridge joints, which lead to damages to cars and accidents in some cases, which requires reducing the documentary cycle to develop radical solutions to those problems that people face on the streets. In parallel with these justifications, sources in the Ministry of Public Works believe that the ministry has failed for more than a decade to contain the growing crisis, despite the formation of committees that set specifications for contractors and amend the specifications of bitumen, which returns to the forefront with every wave of rainfall.

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