Nine companies yesterday submitted pre-qualification tenders for the building of a new Berbice River Bridge among them being four from China and three from India. The other two were Rockey & Son Construction, a local company and Aecon Global Services of Canada.
The names of all of the companies are shown in the table below.
President Irfaan Ali had in August told Stabroek News that plans were on stream for the 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,” the President told this newspaper.
Then in the same month, 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 available at a $25,000 non-refundable fee.
The advertisement had stated that tenders must be submitted to and will be opened at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board on September 18th 2024 but it was extended to yesterday’s date.
The Ministry of Public Works stated that qualification requirements included but were not limited to: “Letters of Intent to Finance from institutions of repute and previous experience in the Design/Build modality of project implementation for projects of this magnitude”.
Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill had said that there was no need for a feasibility study for the building of a new bridge as it will just be replacing the current retractable one and has a similar alignment. “We don’t see a need because all we have to do is get a superior modern bridge,” he had told Stabroek News.
However, the Alliance for Change (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 was not opposed to development and modernization, the AFC called on the government to immediately release the findings of any pre-feasibility study that informed the decision to proceed with a new bridge. It said that it also expected that a comprehensive feasibility study and an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment would be done and made available to the public before any further steps were taken.
The AFC 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 intended 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 Company had previously disclosed that it was 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 Caribbean Court of Justice and lost. With the government’s announcement of a new bridge, the AFC said, it was unclear whether the company would 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 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 demanded “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 despite Guyana’s newfound oil wealth, the country’s needs far exceed its revenues.
President Ali has staunchly defended his government’s plans for the state-of-the-art fixed high span bridge across the Berbice River, saying that concerns about feasibility, costs, and other issues from the opposition were simply against progress.
Ali said that the opposition was questioning the feasibility for the bridge at a time when his government had 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 had said.
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,” he had said.
“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.
