Poor public infrastructure is impeding progress

Nov 03, 2013 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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Guyana’s economic development has been impeded and its international competitiveness has been impaired because of the lack of major investment in public infrastructure. Collapsing stellings; congested city streets; aging ferries; deteriorating hinterland airstrips; broken bridges; impassable roadways and weakened kokers and sea defences, have all become major obstacles to everyday commuting, communication and commerce.
The People’s Progressive Party Civic administration, however, has no comprehensive plan to invest in, improve or increase public infrastructure assets. The danger is that, by not repairing existing assets, higher costs will eventually be incurred in replacing them. The pursuit of costly white elephant structures or politically glamorous projects – such as the so-called five-star hotel and specialty hospital–rather than pursuing practical projects, has been sucking the oxygen out of other essential infrastructure.
Guyana needs a plan to coordinate the efforts and consolidate the resources of various state agencies which seem to be involved in public infrastructure works. The Ministry of Public Works, for example, is charged with general responsibility for infrastructure. It frequently seems preoccupied with lowly, municipal tasks at the expense of longer-term national matters.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment seems to be running its own ‘Hinterland Infrastructure Committee’ for mining districts. The Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, also, has assumed a role in building roads, bridges and structures in the hinterland. The Office of the President has become involved, with predictably costly and catastrophic results, in attempting amateurishly to administer an ambitious information technology engineering project.
The absence of a coherent policy, the lack of a comprehensive plan, and the failure of coordination have created confusion and consternation in the delivery of services and waste in the expenditure of state funds. A notorious example has been the administration’s strange construction of the $54.4 million airstrip on Wakenaam Island. Island residents, years after its completion, are still bewildered at being given an unwanted airstrip yet being denied river transport they always asked for. Paradoxically, forty-four more frequently used airstrips in the hinterland – located in the Barima-Waini; Cuyuni-Mazaruni; Potaro-Siparuni and Rupununi Regions – receive only marginal maintenance and scant attention, a contributory factor to aviation accidents.
The condition of bridges is frightening and dangerous. The spectacular submerging of sections of the Demerara Harbour Bridge in July 2012 halted traffic between the east and west banks of the Demerara. The collapse of the Moco-Moco Bridge temporarily stopped travel in the South Rupununi. The Kumaka-San Jose Bridge had become a nightmare for Moruca residents.
Traversing some roads is agonizing. Bus drivers on the Linden-Kwakwani route and residents of Ituni set up road blocks to protest against the deplorable state of the road in August. Residents of East Bank Berbice– a major commerce corridor of the entire East Berbice-Corentyne Region–have frequently held protests to call attention to their plight. Bus operators in Bartica for years have been calling for the reconstruction of the Bartica-Potaro Road. Sophia residents, in collaboration with the United Minibus Association, were forced to protest about the poor condition of roads which have remained in a deplorable state for over 12 years.
The aging fleet of ferries – including the venerable MV Barima, MV Makouria, MV Malali, MV Torani, MV Kimbia and MV Lady Northcote – is another maritime nightmare. Vessels now have to be docked at a cost of several hundred millions and have become increasingly uneconomical to maintain.
The decaying Bartica, New Amsterdam, Parika, Rosignol, Stabroek, Vreed-en-hoop and Wakenaam stellings all need major rehabilitation. The Wakenaam stelling may cost millions to repair in the wake of an incident in which the ferry – MV Torani – slammed into it in July 2012.
A section of the new, multi-million dollar Supenaam stelling – completed at a cost of $431 million but with additional remedial works which cost over $100 million – collapsed.
A lorry ran off the MV Makouria ferry and sank in the Essequibo River as the vessel was making its way to Bartica in September 2013. Members of the Parika Speed Boat Owners Association, fed up with the primitive docking arrangements at the decaying Parika stelling, protested to demand safer facilities for the increasing daily traffic.
Guyana’s 430 kilometre-long, low-lying coastline – most particularly between the Pomeroon River in the Pomeroon-Supenaam Region (No.2) and Crabwood Creek in the East Berbice-Corentyne Region (No.6) – needs to be protected from the Atlantic Ocean. The Ministry of Public Works cannot competently cope with the continuous challenge of maintaining the natural and man-made sea defence systems. Breaches still recur in the Demerara-Mahaica (No. 4) and Mahaica-Berbice (No.5) Regions.
The Office of the President’s E-Government Project Unit was ill-equipped to adequately supervise the installation of the 560-kilometre, US$32M fibre-optic cable from Lethem to Georgetown. The project director, in another example of poor planning and lack of coordination at central government level admitted, frankly, “Our major problem was the quality of supervision.” The Public Works Ministry eventually had to be tasked with correcting poor work from Kurupkari to Mabura by one of the project’s contractors.
Guyana’s assets will continue to deteriorate and its abundant resources will remain underdeveloped without a public infrastructure plan. There must be new thinking if this country is to become competitive and the people are to have a good life.

 

 

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