Local trading and logistics company Dequan Shipping and Trading Inc is seeking to build a clay brick manufacturing company in Berbice, the first for that county, and has applied for the requisite permissions..
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday notified of the project, in the state-owned Guyana Chronicle, stating also that the clay would be extracted from land owned by the developer and the excavated pits will be used for aquaculture projects in the future.
It also informed that the company plans to use “efficient kiln technologies” in the use of making the blocks.
While the EPA provided a website hyperlink for the project summary, it could not be accessed as the agency has not yet posted it, as is the case with many of the notices it advertises in the daily newspapers. Many times, there is an extended wait period for the project to be posted online and sometimes this is not done. At other times, while the project is listed, there are no supporting documents, as in the recent case of the Sheriff Greenfield project, which has not been uploaded.
As regards the proposed clay brick factory, the EPA said that it has screened the project and determined that it is exempt from providing an environmental impact assessment as operations would not significantly affect the environment.
Neither the cost of the project nor how many clay bricks are expected to be produced daily is available.
Last year, the government had spent $10 million on the purchase of 300,000 clay bricks from the community of Shulinab, South Central Rupununi, Region Nine. President Irfaan Ali had made the announcement during a meeting at the community benab.
That first order of clay bricks, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) had informed, was to be used for the construction of homes, as part of the government’s housing programme in Region Nine.
Shulinab and other villages in the vicinity are known for producing clay bricks that are commonly used for construction in the region, the government had said.
Guyana’s first clay brick factory was built in Canal Number 2, Region 3 in the 1970s, under the Forbes Burnham government and through a loan from China. The facility became defunct, after there was low demand for the blocks, following the saturation on the market of lower priced concrete hollow blocks.
Government had put the 46 acres facility up for sale last year but it is unclear who bought it or what the current status of that deal is.
