GMSA wants dedicated maintenance programme for hinterland roads

Mar 03, 2019 News

Hinterland roads must be subjected to a dedicated Government-led project to maintain them, so that manufacturers, especially in the forestry and wood-processing industry, have better accessibility, according to the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA).
In his address at the Annual General Meeting on Thursday last at the Marriott Hotel, President of the GMSA, Shyam Nokta, said that infrastructure and access proved a key challenge in the first half of 2018.
“The extended rainy season coupled with lack of maintenance, rendered many key roads to the interior virtually impassable. Consequently, this led to severe challenges in getting goods to hinterland locations overland and affected the forestry and mining sectors in a major way.”
He noted that while efforts have been made to address this issue, accessibility remains a challenge.
The forestry sub-sector experienced 18.1 percent growth in the first half of 2018, driven by the production of logs and round wood, mainly from small operators. However, the export of timber is slowing because, for much of the year, the sector has been plagued by the reduced supply of goods by manufacturers to hinterland areas.
The GMSA advocated for this road improvement, when pursuing its position paper on Budget 2019 to Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan. There were a few other initiatives, which it posits, will improve business for the forestry and wood-processing sector.
To assist with the institution of a dedicated maintenance programme for hinterland roads, the GMSA suggested that incentives be provided to exiting logging companies to repair and maintain roads to close their forest concessions.
A list of roads was submitted by GMSA to the Ministry of Public Infrastructure for which only a few were partially done. It suggested that public work contracts be awarded outside of the rainy season, with contractors being carefully examined and weight limits per axle/tyre being implemented with scales at strategic points.
The Ministry of Public Infrastructure has received tenders, in the past two months, for projects focused on the rehabilitation/construction of hinterland roads across the country. Tender openings for projects related to hinterland road works had engineer’s estimates adding up to about $2B for last Tuesday alone.
Pertinent to the discussion of the wood-processing sector is the fact that Guyana imports wood products even though the country has one of the highest percentages of forest cover in the world. This was noted by Business Minister, Dominic Gaskin, at the last Timber expo held at the National Stadium in 2018.
He had said that Guyana has not yet developed its resources in a way that fully exploits the value associated with them.
Nokta said that the forestry and wood-processing sub-sector, as the largest sub-sector of GMSA, will see improvements through the mechanism of ministerial roundtable discussions, where representatives of GMSA and the government meet bi-monthly to discuss key issues affecting the sector.

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