The Government of Sierra Leone, through the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA), has awarded the contract to Consulting Engineers Group (CEG) Limited for the Design Review and Construction Supervision for the Upgrading of the Kailahun-Buedu Road.
The contract between SLRA and CEG was signed by the Director General, Ing. Amara Jambai Kanneh and Director Bernard Obika on Thursday, August 31, 2023 at the China Henan International Corporation Co. Ltd (CHICO) campsite in Gbalahun village, Kailahun District, in the presence of the Minister of Works and Public Assets, Dr. Denis Sandy and members of the project communities.
CEG is an Indian international infrastructure engineering consulting company that provides services in design, planning, engineering, consulting and construction management solutions to highways, bridges, tunnels, railways, metros, buildings and water resources.
The contract requires CEG to assist SLRA in providing effective supervision, management and monitoring of the execution of the civil works on the project which is carried out by CHICO.
Before signing the contract, the Director General of SLRA noted that despite the country has recently being through an elections, President Bio is committed to construct the Kailahun- Koindu – Guinea-Liberia Border Road.
Ing. Kanneh encouraged the community people to take opportunity of the road project by embarking on large scale farming to increase their production capacities and boost the national economy. “We are connecting you to the cities so that when you harvest your products you can easily transport them to bigger markets in the country, not to smuggle them to neighbouring countries as you used to do,” he cautioned.
The Director of CEG, Dr. Bernard Obika, thanked the Government of Sierra Leone for choosing his company to supervise the road works. “We have supervised many road works across the world, including those done in Zambia by CHICO, and I can confirm that they do very good work,” he said.
Both companies committed to work together and ensure that the road works were done according to the design of the project.
While addressing the locals, the Minister of Works and Public Assets, Dr. Denis Sandy, said that President Bio was very passionate about road development, especially the Kailahun-Koindu – Guinea-Liberia Border Road Project, because of the many benefits that it stands to bring to the country.
Dr. Sandy encouraged them to embrace and protect the project because of the direct benefits that they will gain from it, and assured the land owning families that government is committed to compensate them for their properties.
The Deputy Director General of SLRA, Ing. Alfred Jalil Momodu, told the land owning families that SLRA wanted to carefully clarify the measurement of the land and their ownership, especially for properties with multiple claims of ownerships, because it does not want to pay compensation to the wrong people.
The Town Chief of Gbalahun, Chief Korjie thanked the Minister and SLRA for addressing most of the concerns of the land owning families.
CHICO are far advanced in the site establishment, including quarry installations and the construction of camp site for the supervision engineers which is scheduled for completion by end of October.
