Guyana-Suriname crossing still impossible

Apr 30, 2009 News

Legal crossings between Suriname and Guyana and Suriname and French Guiana remained closed yesterday as industrial action by Surinamese Customs Officers entered its seventh day.
Reliable sources said that they were informed that the aggrieved Customs Officers met with representatives of the Surinamese Government yesterday and were locked in discussions over what is believed to be a wages dispute.
Up to reporting time there were no indications as to whether the dispute had been resolved.
Yesterday there was no movement on the Corentyne River by the MV Canawaima, which plies between Moleson Creek on the Guyana side and South Drain in Suriname.
The vessel, jointly owned by Guyana and Suriname, remained docked at South Drain.
The situation with respect to border crossing from Guyana to Suriname and French Guiana and Suriname became unstable last Thursday when the Surinamese Customs Officers countrywide commenced a work to rule.
The officers worked selectively for a few days since then, allowing the Inter Guiana Games Athletics contingent from Suriname and French Guiana to travel to Guyana on Thursday and then back home on Monday last.
They also worked on Saturday to allow a delegation from Guyana to enter Suriname.
Sources said that they stopped work altogether from Tuesday last.
Meanwhile, the Rosignol/New Amsterdam Ferry service will continue because there are no immediate plans to completely close it down.
General Manager of Transport and Harbors Department (T&HD), Kevin Trim, said that the ferry was at the moment running at a loss but Management was taking into consideration crossings by school children and would try to keep the service going as long as it possibly can.
He made the clarification yesterday after a previous Manager at the T&HD in January last disclosed that the ferry would have been kept running until April to transport heavy duty vehicles which could not have traversed the Berbice River Bridge (BRB) in the first few months of its opening.
Sources then said that the New Amsterdam/Rosignol ferry would have been shut down in April when construction of the eastern access road to the BRB was completed since that would have allowed for the opening to heavy duty vehicles.
The heavy duty vehicles have since been allowed to traverse the bridge and in addition to the lighter vehicles already allowed, the MV Torani has had not much else to do except transport pedestrian commuters.
But as the General Manager said, this service will continue.
And once flourishing businesses at the Rosignol Stelling area, mainly snackettes, have been hard hit by the diversion of motorists and other commuters as a result of the bridge.
Some have closed down and others are barely getting enough business to get by.
“Compared to what it was, this stelling area like a ghost town now,” one snackette owner said yesterday.

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