Access road not yet completed

Jan 19, 2009 News

PALMYRA, EAST CANJE — The new date for completion of the Berbice River Bridge Access Road is now during the first week in April.

The Berbice River Bridge access road

According to Region Six Chairman, Zulfikar Mustapha, this is heavily dependent on weather patterns. Should there be many sunny days, the project ought to be finished earlier.

The Chairman said that he did not have the original date of completion on hand, but lamented that it had been changed on at least two occasions because of inclement weather and other factors.

In a previous interview, Minister of Public Works and Hydraulics, Robeson Benn, had pointed out that the logistics for construction was a complicated one: the stone was brought from the Bartica area, traversing the Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice Rivers, into the Canje River, where it was deposited. This depended heavily on tidal conditions.

The sand came from the Timehri location in sufficient quantities, but there were disruptions. One operator lost a bargeload of sand.

On Saturday, the Region Six Chairman and his team visited the road to observe the progress. According to him, some 50 percent of the entire access road has been asphalted. “I am satisfied that work is progressing satisfactorily upon inspection. I hope the new scheduled date would see the project coming to an end. I requested that the contractor and his team work 24-hour shifts in order to take advantage of the sunny weather we have been experiencing over the past few days. Although work is ongoing at the site, traffic is still moving freely.”

He claimed that the structure, since it was opened to vehicular traffic on December 23rd, 2008, has shown no signs of deterioration, given the fact that the area was a swampland.

The US$8.7 million work is being executed by DIPCON. Work began on the eastern side at the end of 2006. The Berbice River Bridge Access Road is 1.6 kilometres long from Crab Island to Palmyra Village.

It is funded by the Government of Guyana, with support of a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank. The executing agency is the Ministry of Public Works and Communications’ Work Service Group.