The cracked tiles shall be replaced, the deformed areas shall be repaired, and the project to improve the pedestrian walkway along Metallurgov Avenue near Bogdan Khmelnitsky Park shall be completed, ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih insists. The company reserved UAH 10 million for this project; the works started in April, but were suspended in May after the citizens noticed obvious visual inconsistencies in the laid tiles. As a result, the company froze its payments for the work until the defects were eliminated.
At the meeting with Alexander Katrichenko, the Deputy Mayor, Ivan Karyi, Director of Municipal Infrastructure Development Department, representatives of ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih and Stroitelnyi Aliance Sooruzhenie company (the direct executor of these works) agreed to create an expert group, conduct a survey of the entire completed pavement and identify areas that needed to be replaced.
In case the contractor does not eliminate the non-conformities in the near future, ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih is ready to refuse from further services of Stroitelnyi Aliance Sooruzhenie and engage another contractor for quality performance of works.
Within the framework of social partnership agreements it is planned to replace paving slabs and outdoor lighting along Metallurgov avenue at the area of B. Khmelnitsky park, as well as repairing the facades of houses at the area of the 95th block for total amount of UAH 21.5 million.
Now, the company is restoring the facades at the 95th block, has completed the repair of the outdoor lighting networks and installation of new LED lamps on the alley near Khmelnitsky park (done by NVK Krivorozhelektromontazh company), but there were problems with pavement tiles. There are different versions in this regard. One of them is the contractor was carrying out the laying at an accelerated pace in order to be in time for May 18, by the time of Eurofest city festival.
Whether or not the mayor’s office tasked the contractor with this is unknown. But even visual inspection shows that some of the tiles have been laid with cracks and chips, uneven height and visible gaps. At the same time, without any agreement from other participants of the tripartite social partnership agreement, the contractor independently replaced the type and size of the tile, as well as the tile backfill materials, using slag instead of sand. Later on, this was a major cause of the pavement deformation.
However, the problems with the tiles can be corrected. ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih believes that Stroitelnyi Aliance Sooruzhenie, the executor of these works, will eliminate all non-conformities and complete the work on this project. In this case, the company will resume financing this project. (AMKR/Ukrainian metal)