Latest update April 7th, 2025 12:08 AM
Drainage repairs at Bonasika estimated to cost $104M
Kaieteur News – Drainage works at Bonasika, Essequibo River, Region Three are estimated to cost the country some $104M.
Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Ali
This is according to an advertisement published in the daily newspapers inviting contractors to submit bids for the drainage works. The works are being undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture under the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA). The drainage repairs are for eight different areas in Bonasika and the government engineer has estimated that it will cost some $12.9M to rehabilitate each of the eight drainage systems.
Based on the information in the newspaper advertisement, the eight drainage systems to be rehabilitated on the island are located at Mahendra Nauth Gaya to Lakmattie Bhagwandin Area, Lower Bonasika, Leon Evans to Nazmool Ghanie area, Yassin Ghanie to Rajkumar Ramcharran area, Tarachand Sugrim to Ramlakahan area, Basil Dharmjeet to Parmand Changa area, Astraf Hussain to Ramdeo Lochan area, Alicia Williams to Timothy Singh area, and Satyanand Ramkissoon to Naresh Kunjebeharry area.
Bids for this project will be opened on Tuesday October 25, 2022 in the boardroom of the Ministry of Agriculture on Regent and Vlissengen Road Georgetown.
Talks about drainage works on the island had first commenced back in July this year during a government outreach held there and spearheaded by the Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha. Mustapha had gone there to encourage farmers on the island to cultivate more root crops because they are high on demand. He had told the farmers that government wants to work with them to produce such crops because it wants to continue efforts with CARICOM, to reduce the regional food import bill by 25% by the year 2025.
In order to ensure that farmers can ramp crop production, the minister had said that the most important thing that they need is proper drainage for their farms. This was reportedly determined after a team from the ministry had reportedly visited the area a few months prior to the outreach and conducted assessment. The proposed scope of work for the rehabilitation of the drainage systems were estimated to cost come $120M, monies that ministry had not set aside in its 2022 budget.
“I have a report here. The most important things you need, based on what is here in the report, are proper drainage for your farms and to have the bushes cleared. The entire programme will cost about $120 million. We did not budget for those works this year but because of the importance of agriculture and the fact that we want to ensure you have the necessary infrastructure to ramp up your production, we will put systems in place to start those works”, Zulfikar had told the farmer during the outreach.
The estimated $104M drainage works at Bonasika is in addition to another estimated $90M for the same works at Bartica Region Seven. Bids for the Bartica Drainage project will also be opened on Tuesday October 25, 2022 at the Ministry of Agriculture Boardroom.
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