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Berbice Bridge still to return signed agreement for tolls lowering
Lower tolls for the Berbice Bridge were expected to be implemented by Tuesday, December 1, but the operator is still to sign and return the agreement to Government for it to become a reality.
The Berbice Bridge Company Inc. is still to return a signed agreement that will pave the way for lower tolls from Tuesday.
Giving an update yesterday, Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, said that a draft agreement was sent earlier this month to the Berbice Bridge Company Inc., (BBCI) to sign.
It set forth the conditions where the tolls will be lowered by Tuesday and the BBCI will start accepting the $40M Government subvention.
The non-receipt of the signed agreement means that for all intents and purposes, the December 1, deadline is still very much in limbo.
The agreement caters for the toll for passenger cars and buses to be reduced from $2,200 to $1,900, a 13.6 percent decline, while other types of vehicles will be reduced by 10 percent.
The toll reductions had been a campaign promise by the coalition and were outlined in Budget 2015. It was expected to be implemented from September 1, 2015, but was not because negotiations between the Government and BBCI remained deadlocked.
BBCI had asked the government for some extension so that it could discuss the implications of the proposals with their stakeholders.
In the interim, as the commuters awaited the reduced toll, the Government had implemented river taxis to ply the Rosignol to New Amsterdam route.
Minister Patterson told reporters earlier this month that between September 21 and November 7, some 62,465 persons had used the boats. Of this, 11,623 were either students or the elderly.
Government has said that its efforts to reduce the Berbice Bridge toll is part of a plan to alleviate the burden of the high fare for the over 150,000 Guyanese who live within Regions Five and Six that traverse the bridge to access education and health services, conduct business and travel on a daily basis.
In total, the river taxis conducted over 2,800 trips across the river between September 21 and November 7.
The bridge has been a sore issue for the opposition and Berbicians who have been complaining about the tolls.
Built as a public/private partnership, the financing of the structure and how it ended up in the hands of a few private individuals with little say for Government, has seen the administration moving to increase its shares.
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