President Irfaan Ali yesterday defended his government’s plans for a state-of-the-art fixed high span bridge across the Berbice River saying that concerns about feasibility, costs, and other issues from the opposition Alliance For Change (AFC) were simply against progress.
Ali said that the opposition is questioning the feasibility for the bridge at a time when his government has explained that a fixed span bridge was needed to accommodate continuous river and overhead traffic to complement development plans in the region.
“We have already said Berbice will be a major industrial hub… the port facility in Berbice, the new industrial zone, the Palmyra development, the new road we are going to build, but inherently these hypocrites can’t help themselves. Anything development they have to stop. They believe an investment in these regions is a political investment,” he stated yesterday during a visit to Region Eight alongside Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha and Minister of Tourism Oneidge Walrond.
Ali recalled that when he was an opposition Member of Parliament and had asked the APNU+AFC about the socio-economic studies that drove their shuttering of sugar estates, he was not given any.
“When I said where is the socio-economic study to inform the closing of the sugar estates, they said, ‘We don’t need that, what you need that for? This thing is a burden on the people, on the state’. That is how they viewed the sugar industry,”
“It really hurts… they have no plans, they have no vision. Everything they want to kill, but I will make sure the Berbice River Bridge will be done and the commuters will be happy with a series of announcements to be made to make it more competitive, less costly more efficient,” he added.
On Monday, the AFC raised a series of concerns about what the government intends.
The AFC noted that if modelled after the New Demerara River Bridge, the Berbice Bridge would be projected to cost the taxpayers of Guyana in excess of US$260 million.
“This significant investment, which far exceeds the cost of the existing Berbice Bridge, necessitates rigorous scrutiny and transparency to ensure that it is in the best interest of the Guyanese people,” the party argued.
Stating that it is not opposed to development and modernization, the AFC called on the government to immediately release the findings of any pre-feasibility study that has informed the decision to proceed with this new bridge project. It said that it also expected that a comprehensive feasibility study and an Environmen-tal and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) will be done and made available to the public before any further steps are taken.
It listed a series of key concerns.
It said that the current Berbice Bridge operates under a concessional agreement that runs until 2030 and questioned whether the government intends to prematurely terminate this agreement, and if so, what compensation will be provided to the Berbice Bridge Company Inc (BBCI).
The AFC noted that the Berbice Bridge Com-pany had previously disclosed that it is operating at a loss, leading to attempts to increase tolls four-fold in 2018 – a move that the AFC said it successfully blocked. The company subsequently challenged the decision in the Carib-bean Court of Justice and lost. With the government’s announcement of a new bridge, the AFC said that it remains unclear whether the company will once again seek legal recourse.
It also pointed out that the existing Berbice Bridge, which cost US$40 million, was initially criticised for its questionable feasibility.
“The then-PPP government resorted to a controversial public-private partnership (PPP) model, aspects of which are still under judicial review. The AFC urges the government to avoid repeating past mistakes by ensuring that this new project is based on solid, transparent, and publicly available data,” the party said.
The AFC also expressed concerns that the decision to build a new bridge may be based on flawed assumptions
“It is worth noting that the current administration has recently acknowledged the infeasibility of other large-scale projects, such as a deep-water harbour and an oil refinery. The AFC questions whether a similar assessment has been conducted for this bridge, and if not, why the project is being pursued,” the AFC said.
The location of the proposed bridge and the anticipated toll rates are also critical factors that remain undisclosed, it noted.
“The AFC demands that these details be provided, as they will directly impact the livelihoods of those who rely on the bridge for daily commutes.”
The AFC contended that that despite Guyana’s newfound oil wealth, the country’s needs far exceed its revenues.
Ali yesterday reiterated much of what he had on Sunday told this newspaper: that plans are on stream for the four-lane bridge to match future development plans not just for Berbice but the country.
“Of course it will be a four-lane bridge… one of the things that is important in the building of these new transformative infrastructural projects such as the bridges in Wismar, the Berbice Bridge, the Demerara Bridge… is us looking at ways in which they will add to the competitiveness of the business environment and efficiency in the country,” he had said.
“In Berbice, we are looking at the Palmyra development, the new gas project which will lead to an industrial estate that will itself need a bridge that caters for continuous use of both bridge and river traffic,” he said.
In Friday’s edition of the Stabroek News, the Ministry of Public Works advertised for the pre-qualification of contractors to design, build and finance the New Berbice River Bridge.
The pre-qualification application documents were to be made available from 9 am yesterday at the Ministry of Public Works’ Accounts Department in Fort Street, Kingston for a $25,000 non-refundable fee.
Tenders must be submitted to and will be opened at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board on September 18th 2024.
