Dear Editor,
It doesn’t come as a big surprise that on average, the toll for a motor car to cross the Berbice River Bridge will be approximately $1,000, since only at that tariff rate can the investor possibly facilitate a payback of their investment within the agreed time-frame. This will be a significant financial burden for the traveller to Corentyne, but a functional Berbice River Bridge (BRB) provides significantly more benefit to John public than its associated cost, and for this reason alone, this bridge is good for Guyana. Gone will be the days of the nightmares called the MV Torani and the MV Sandaka and the connected corrupt public officials who man these Berbice River stellings and vessels, save and except the few honourable officials. Travelling to Corentyne will now be as easy as travelling to Parika.
This now brings me to the point of greater uniformity in the rates for river crossing in Guyana. A car pays on average just below $100 to cross the 1.2 mile Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB), while that same car will be called upon to pay approximately $1,000 to cross the 1 mile BRB. Any rational mind will tell you that there is a grave inconsistency here, and I would dare say injustice to those having to cross the new BRB.
Reading a story in the Guyanese press about the “decking plates collapsing” on the DHB and the government having to pump several hundred million valuable dollars into repairing this bridge further highlights this inequality. Users of the DHB continue to pay a pittance compared to the users of the Berbice and Essequibo Rivers, and to compound this insult the government funds the emergency repairs to the DHB from the treasury. This flawed policy must be revisited with some degree of urgency, since the role of the state is not to tax the poor (many Berbice and Essequibo River users) to fund the poor (many users of the DHB). I call on the Berbicians and Essequibians to advocate a more equitable cost structure for river crossing in Guyana, since it directly affects them. I would like to encourage the Berbice and Essequibo business community, GAWU, NAACIE, RPA, the GPSU (all representing significant numbers of constituents in Corentyne and on the Essequibo coast) to deeply deliberate on my observations since once a precedent is set, there is no turning back. Hopefully, as an outcome of these deliberations the public policy on river crossing in Guyana will become more equitable.
Yours faithfully,
Sasenarine Singh
