The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved US$360,000 (equivalent to $72,000,000) to aid in the preparation of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the Georgetown- Lethem Road.
The money is a technical cooperation grant and was approved on December 13th, the IDB website states. The total project costs US$390,000 ($78,000,000) and Guyana is expected to supply the outstanding amount. The executing agency for the project is the Ministry of Public Works.
The road linking Georgetown to Lethem is seen as key in opening additional trade markets for both Guyana and Brazil, particularly with the opening of the Takutu Bridge. The paving of the Lethem-Linden road has been in the pipeline for several years without any significant progress being made. During the rainy season, the trail from Lethem to Georgetown is virtually impassable at points. The IDB had previously funded a study to determine the feasibility of paving the road. Currently, teams from Guyana and Brazil are in discussions on this project.
During the elections campaign season, opposition coalition APNU had accused the government of entering into a secret deal with a company that would see the construction of a new road from Lethem to Georgetown that would bypass Linden.
However, Public Works Minister Roberson Benn denied this and said that residents of Linden would not be discriminated against.
“We are saying that we will work to pave the road from Linden to Lethem. We ain’t move the road head to some other place so we could discriminate against the Lindeners. The road got to pass through Linden as far as we are concerned,” Benn said.
