Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, presenting this year’s budget, stated that the sum of $5.2 billion will be expended on the rehabilitation and maintenance of roads while some $2.4 billion will be spend for the same purpose on bridges.
A sum of $450 million has been budgeted for major rehabilitation to be carried out on Sheriff Street and Mandela Avenue as well as the access road at Timehri leading to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA). In addition, designs for the extension of the four-lane highway on the East Bank Demerara between Providence and Grove will commence.
A further sum of $1.3 billion is budgeted for continuing works on 25 critical structures from Garden of Eden to Timehri on the East Bank Demerara and Annandale to Buxton and the Abary Bridge on the East Coast Demerara. A further allocation of $2.5 billion will finance rehabilitation and maintenance of urban, rural and hinterland roads in all administrative regions.
The 2010 budget also provides for construction works to the tune of $1 billion for 35 km of all-weather roads in the Black Bush Polder area, an area which houses some 425 farmers and where some 17,000 acres of land are under cultivation. Additionally, in order to improve access to over 1,500 acres of agricultural land, the finance minister announced that major improvement will commence on the East and West Canje roads.
The 2010 budget also makes provision for upgrading works to the Demerara Harbour Bridge, which the minister stated in his presentation, maintains a crucial linkage between Regions Three and Four 4.
Among the works catered for in the budgeted sum for the bridge are the procurement of deck units, servicing of pontoons, replacement of the hydraulic ramp, as well as the fabrication of distribution beams, transom beams and buoys.
