-$30M wharf for Berbice
A $1.6B water treatment plant was yesterday commissioned at Queenstown, Corriverton and some 12,000 residents in villages along the Corentyne Coast are expected to benefit from the facility.
According to a release from the Government Infor-mation Agency (GINA), the plant, which will serve residents between Number 74 Village to Line Path, was constructed by a team which included a consortium of experts from Tokyo Engineering of Japan and their local counterparts Toruca Corporation. The Japan International Coopera-tion Agency (JICA) is one of the key agencies through which the programmes are being utilized.
According to the release, the project had its genesis in 2007 when Guyana and Japan signed a joint Declaration on Enhanced Co-operation in Environment and Climate change issues following a meeting between President Bharrat Jagdeo and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
While addressing those gathered, President Jagdeo issued an appeal to persons to conserve water, noting that in the next 20 years it is predicted that approximately 85% of the world face a water shortage.
He noted that Guyana is fortunate to have a large amount of fresh water available, but in not unlimited quantities and he noted that persons should begin to appreciate the value of the resource.
He also stated that, “When you move to treated water it becomes infinitely more expensive and therefore we have to ensure that the water is not wasted because in many parts of the world today people don’t have access to this scarce resource it’s very costly to them”.
Water Minister Irfaan Ali described the investment as a fulfillment of a vision of the President for low carbon energy type investment noting that it complements transformation in Region 6 where $6B has been spent on water.
The plant was constructed with a storage tank 25m high to improve delivery and boasts unique characteristics such as a biological method for water sanitization and the release noted that the engineers have applied sand filtration technology which will make the plant highly energy efficient.
At the ceremony, President Jagdeo hailed the friendly relations between Guyana and Japan and according to GINA, he noted that one of several positives which came out of the Copenhagen Summit last December was an agreement whereby Japan will provide US$11B over the next three years to assist the developing world to address climate change.
He said that in a few months’ time a $30M multi-purpose wharf will be constructed in Berbice and will be the staging area for rigs which will start drilling for oil early next year in the Corentyne basin.
According to GINA, the Corentyne River Bridge is another major project in the pipeline which will fortify trade between Guyana and Suriname.
Japanese Ambassador to Guyana Tatsuaki Iwata, who was on hand to witness the unveiling of the facility, hailed the various areas of development in Guyana in recent years, GINA noted.
