Government wants to develop a more creative and cost-effective investment model to construct a new fixed bridge across the Demerara River and build a road linking the Ogle and Timehri international airports.
In his Budget 2015 presentation, Minister of Finance Winston Jordan said that roads, bridges, culverts and similar infrastructure are indispensable for creating wealth, linking people, and closing the gap between farms and markets and between businesses and the factors of production. More importantly, he said, they are essential for healthy and sustainable economies.
“In the past, the focus was on reconstruction and/or upgrading the existing assets; not much attention was paid to planning for new infrastructural facilities,” Jordan told the National Assembly. “Our Government intends to ensure the construction of new road links, particularly a road linking our two international airports that provides an alternative option to the East Bank Highway; and the linking of the city and coastland to the new townships of Bartica, Mahdia and Lethem,” he said.
“Our Government also proposes to develop a more creative and cost-effective investment model to construct a new fixed bridge across the Demerara River,” he added.
There have long been calls for a new bridge across the Demerara River and over the past years, the 37-year-old structure has been plagued by mechanical problems. It has been pointed out that the growth in traffic has taken a toll on the bridge, which opened in 1978 and has been the major artery linking Georgetown to the West Demerara. The floating steel structure, which measures 6074 feet (1851.4 metres), spans the Demerara River from the village of Peter’s Hall on the eastern side to Plantation Meer-Zorgen on the western end.
However, engineer Joseph Holder, a former project manager for the bridge including during its construction, has said that the Demerara Harbour Bridge can continue to operate indefinitely.
In relation to the bridge’s design life, Holder, in a collection of papers on the bridge’s history, argued that there is no document signed by any engineer who took part in the design of the DHB that states its design life. It is not the practise of bridge designers to state a design life for their creations, he said, while adding that such a statement is meaningless. To illustrate, he asked what the design life of St George’s Cathedral is and said that there is usually no answer to this question when it is directed to persons who state that the DHB is past its design life.
“The DHB is comprised primarily of steel modules which may be replaced when circumstances require, as is the case with wooden boards on St George’s Cathedral. With replacements of components, the DHB can be given a prolonged and indefinite life like St George’s Cathedral,” the engineer had said.
According to the pre-feasibility study for the new bridge, out of three locations examined, the Houston-Versailles location may be the most feasible for a new bridge. “This prefeasibility study has shown that a new high level four-lane fixed bridge structure at Houston-Versailles is the only economically feasible alternative, providing benefits to society that can amount to a minimum of some US$222 million over a 70-year life cycle at a capital cost of around US$264.5 million. The other alternatives proved to be uneconomical over the period. User tolls were considered to increase at a rate of 2% per year above the existing regime,” it said.
Government has budgeted $13 billion for this year to enhance the roads and bridges network throughout Guyana.
It has also allocated $417 million towards air and river transport so as to better link hinterland regions with urban and rural centres. “This will create both direct and indirect jobs for our people, while helping to promote eco-tourism within these regions and empowering our Indigenous people so that they too can enjoy the good life that we all deserve,” Jordan told the House.
He said that government will improve air service delivery through the rehabilitation of hinterland airstrips and aerodromes as well as the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri. A sum of $644 million has been allocated for dredging the Demerara and Essequibo Rivers; docking of the MB Sandaka, MV Barima, and MV Kimbia; acquiring spares; and rehabilitating stellings at Georgetown, Parika, Leguan and Bartica.
