Rehabilitation of Bartica/Potaro road

Jul 04, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor;
Your publication of June 23 gave prominence to a proposal to rehabilitate the Bartica-Potaro Road in order to connect Bartica to Mandia — a project which was not done for the past 20 years. Mr. Naeem Mohamed has been described as the Senior Hinterland Engineer of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and has evidently proposed a method of reconstruction which I find astonishing in this day and age.
According to him ‘corduroy work will be done and lateritic material will be used to fill in the road’. Such primitive work should have no place in our technology for road maintenance in any part of the country. I have been commissioned by the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers to write a History of Civil Engineering in Guyana but I would never mention that such methodology was suggested in this day and age. Our aid donors would simply ignore us. Surely the Ministry must be aware of the assistance we have received in road design and construction over the years.
The road was once considered a vital access to Lethem as well as the Upper Mazaruni and Issano. I recall that when it was planned to establish connection by road to Brazil, the Bartica Potaro Road was given much publicity and a plan was prepared to obtain access from Georgetown without passing through Bartica.
I was authorized to examine the possibility of alternative access to the road and this required establishing a connection via a river crossing near to Teperu. This was amply illustrated by a road sign authorized by President Burnham. This sign was in place until it collapsed under unfavourable weather conditions. It needs to be replaced as it was ordered by the Head of State and implemented. Your newspaper has it on photographic record and the internet has referred to it.
There are other matters of concern. Who authorized renaming of the Denham suspension bridge? The bridge was officially commissioned by the Governor Sir Edward Denham and there is adequate record of the ceremony. Information on the bridge is readily available but it should not be ‘renamed’ without proper authority. Replacement of that bridge would be better handled by consultants but there is much information on record. Some years ago when it was necessary to pass a large bulldozer over the bridge, I, in my capacity as Chief Engineer, Roads Division in the Ministry of Works and Hydraulics found it desirous to calculate its safe load after reference to the Crown Agents. Nevertheless it can still be considered a risk for modern day traffic. The bridge was opened in 1933 and officially named the Denham Bridge.
The Bartica-Potaro Road has been the subject of study by local and foreign engineers. It has a rich history. The very first attempt at constructing a road in the vicinity was made in 1895 by a Government Surveyor named Wilgress Anderson. The road was proposed to be 16 miles between the Potaro Landing and the Upper tributaries of the Mandia and Konawaruk, a distance of 16 miles.
Corduroy was to be used only in swamps but the base course would be sand clay, white sand and gravel. The estimated cost was $13,000 but it was not clear whether this was actually implemented. However, the interesting point is that he made use of the best available materials and used corduroy only to cross the swamps. There is much information available through the reports of the consultants who reported on their work in comparing alternative routes to Lethem. Their reports are available.
Philip Allsopp

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