People’s National Congress Reform One Guyana (PNCR-1G) back-bencher James McAllister has submitted a motion to parliament calling on the Government to review its decision to build a floating bridge in Berbice between D’Edward Village and Crab Island and hold off on construction for three months.
This is to enable the Economic Services Committee (ESC) of the National Assembly to investigate and identify all factors that influenced the Government’s decision to proceed with a floating bridge as against a fixed pre-stressed bridge at locations other than D’Edward and Crab Island.
The motion further wants the National Assembly to direct the Minister of Public Works and Communication to instruct the Berbice Bridge Company Inc (BBCI) to suspend all works pending the outcome of the investigation by the ESC.
In the Notice Paper, James McAllister, Deputy Chairman of the ESC said that Patricio Millan Development Consul-tants Inc conducted a review of the feasibility study that the Louis Berger Group did and provided the details to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Government of Guyana. He said that it was then posited that Louis Berger “grossly underestimated” the cost of construction and maintenance of the steel floating bridge and that a fixed concrete pre-stressed bridge between the locations of Providence and Augsburg is the only economically viable alternative.
The Louis Berger Group study guided the Government in the current location of the bridge. The motion reminded that the Government had previously signed a Memoran-dum of Understanding with Ballast Nedam International for the construction of a fixed pre-stressed concrete bridge designed to carry live loads in excess of AASHTO HS25. The Notice Paper said that the MOU between Ballast Nedam and the Government of Guyana was abandoned and a new one signed between the latter and BBCI.
The engineering specification came about as a result of the Guiana Shield Hub of which Guyana is a part, which has a number of projects including the Takutu River Bridge and the Linden-Lethem Road among other linkages between Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela. The Notice Paper said that these projects will allow for the full integration of the Guiana Shield Hub Territories and result in massive volumes of containerized traffic that would necessitate bridges engineered for live loads in excess of the present specification for the floating bridge.
The BBCI in August last year presented a cheque for US$5.4M to the successful bidder – the consortium of Bosch Rexroth BV of the Netherlands and Mabey & Johnson of the United Kingdom. This sum represented the first tranche of payment for the design and construction of the bridge.
This event followed the full financial closure of the US$40M committed to the project on August 1. The bridge is scheduled to be completed during the first half of 2008.
