$2.5B IDB loan to build new lab for GNBS

Aug 25, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The Government on Wednesday signed a GYD$2.5B (US$12M) contract with Nabi Construction Inc. to build a new laboratory facility for the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) at the Sophia Exhibition Complex.

Signing the contract on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Permanent Secretary (PS), Sharon Roopchand-Edwards (Center), flanked to the left by Minister Oneidge Waldron and to right by the Chairman/Managing Director of NABI Construction Inc, Shir Affron Nabi.

Funding for the project is coming out of a U$S17M (GYD$3.4B) facilitated by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and is expected to be completed in the next 18 months.

Bids for the new GNBS lab were opened in April last under the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce. The Ministry’s engineer had estimated that the IDB funded project will cost around GYD$1.7B. Only three contractors had placed bids for the project and their respective bid prices were higher than the estimated cost. It is assumed that NABI Construction Inc. won the project because it had placed the lowest bid of $2.5B.

This new loan by the IDB will no doubt further increase Guyana’s indebtedness to the regional lender.

The Ministry of Tourism in a Press Release stated “the recent oil and gas discoveries have produced several changes in the structure of the country’s economy.” As a result of the changes, reasoned the Ministry, it is key to upgrade the current lab of the GNBS because its “role has become more critical to both the private and public sectors.” According to the release this is so because the demand for GNBS services has “increased substantially especially in the areas of business development, metrology, and training in standards for Guyanese firms.”

The Government believes that improving GNBS’ infrastructural facilities will allow the agency “its full capacity to function and support economic diversification, innovation, and access to markets by Guyanese businesses”.

“Construction of this new state of the art facility (new lab), will equip the GNBS with international standard laboratory facilities to assure reliability, adequate space to perform tests for consumer protection and certifying production standards, increased calibration capacity for temperature, moisture, pressure, force, volume and electricity, adequate equipment and the ability to maintain its ISO accreditation, and sufficiently trained staff to perform tests and calibrations and maintenance of these equipment”, the Ministry stated.

In 2016, the IDB had approved a US$9M loan for Guyana under a project titled “Enhancing National Infrastructure (NQI) for Economic Diversification and Trade Promotion”. The project’s objective is to support economic diversification and export in a new oil-based economy. The Government had noted that since then the demand for GNBS services had increased significantly because of the rapid expansion of Guyana’s oil and gas sector and decided that increasing the scope if its original laboratory facility is necessary.

To go ahead with its plans, the Government approached IDB for an additional US$3M on the approved US$9M loan to cater for new services required of GNBS in the areas of business development and training of ISO standards for Guyanese firms. In May 2022, the IDB had announced that it updated Guyana’s loan request for an additional financing of US$8M. The additional financing was adjusted to cater for the increase of construction costs in the country.

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