Farmers, residents to benefit from new Corriverton wharf

Apr 02, 2017 News

The residents, farmers and loggers of Corriverton will now benefit from the use of a new

The newly built Wharf in the town of Corriverton.

wharf built at the river front of the township. The project which cost $16M was made possible through a $25M allocation from Government through the Ministry of Public Infrastructure.
The facility was commissioned yesterday. Outgoing Mayor of Corriverton, Ganesh Gangadin, said that the wharf was built to provide some assistance to persons living upriver, the Orealla Community as well as farmers and loggers who use the river.
He said that prior to the wharf being built, persons would have had to depend on the mercy of the tide before they landed or moored their boats to move their products. “Of course that was extremely difficult and they had to be stuck in the boat for several hours sometimes, waiting on this tide.
“So we proposed this about a year ago. Also some other ministries were interested in the project thus parliament granted an approval, an allocation of a sum of $25M for this project.”
Although $25M was approved for the project, just $16M was spent. Gangadin said that the remaining money will be used to improve the facility.
“It was recently completed but some sort of modification has to be done; for example, we’re looking into the future to put in storage facilities for persons who bring out their produce and may not be able to sell all in the same day. They can actually rent a storage compartment, store their produce and continue the commercial transaction the following day.”
Gangadin added that eventually, the design will also cater for future expansion outward by another 100 feet so that the entire channel edge can be captured. There will be no future interference whatsoever.
“We’re still somewhat hampered by the tide but minimally. I can foresee that a lot of benefits are on the way for the municipality as well as the residents of Orealla and even farmers and the farming community and loggers who are operating almost 50 to 60 miles upriver.”
The outgoing Mayor said that currently, people are using the wharf but it is not in full operation as yet. He said that the mooring piles are already in place. These will be bolstered by another set of mooring piles so that boats can be moored easily.
Gangadin said that the wharf will be handed over to the municipality under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). He said that the MoU is currently being drafted and after signature will be managed solely by the Municipal Administrative Council of the town.
Further, Gangadin said that apart from the wharf, the municipality is seeing the new infrastructure as a great commercial venture. He said that in the future, there are plans to further modernise the area.
“We applied some time in 2016 and we are awaiting approval for a British grant to actually build a boardwalk right out here with a restaurant on-board and to also pave that area out there to make it a commercial area where it is planned to build a few concessionary stores for which they’ll be rented as a source of revenue for the municipality.”
Gangadin said that based on initial calculations, if the model of franchising is used, the potential revenue which can be garnered from the project will outweigh that of the town’s rates and taxes.
“We will almost double the revenue to the municipality, of course which is also a sustainable way of developing our town.”

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