New Demerara River Bridge…Jagdeo, Brassington must not be allowed to hijack project

- APNU’s Harmon  

Bharrat Jagdeo and Winston Brassington must not be allowed to hijack the process and be involved in the workings of the building of a new bridge across the Demerara River.
This is the view of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) parliamentarian Joseph Harmon, who stressed that his party is in support of the building of a new structure, but is wholly against any involvement of Winston Brassington and the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).

APNU MP, Joseph Harmon

Harmon in an invited comment yesterday said that NICIL should be banned from being involved in any infrastructure development projects.
The APNU Executive said that there is enough questionable information in the public domain regarding NICIL and as such, the President should ensure that the company and Brassington no longer undertake these projects.
NICIL and Brassington have been at the forefront of several large projects mired in controversy such as the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Project, the Berbice River Bridge and the Marriott Hotel.
Asked why NICIL would be the vehicle to pursue the project and not the Ministry of Public Works, Harmon said that it is because of the involvement of former President, Bharrat Jagdeo.
“We don’t want these people (Jagdeo and Brassington) involved.”
He suggested that the National Infrastructure Thematic Working Group should instead be tasked with pursuing the building of the New Demerara River Bridge. That body was formed when the National Stakeholders Forum recently met at the Guyana International Conference Centre.
This group, Harmon said, comprises a number of local organizations, inclusive of the private sector and the Work Services Group of the Public Works Ministry.
Harmon stressed that the opposition wants to place on record that it is not that they are not in support of the new bridge or that they just want to be blocking projects, rather, the opposition is primarily against any involvement of Brassington, Jagdeo and NICIL.
“A new river bridge across the Demerara is a necessity that the opposition wants to see become a reality,” he said.

Bharrat Jagdeo

NICIL, headed by Brassington, this past weekend began the process of searching for partners to build the New Demerara River Bridge, using the debt and equity financing structure.
In the call for partners, NICIL said that the project will be implemented using a Build Own Operate Transfer (BOOT) model, “in a manner similar to the Berbice Bridge.”
According to Government, the responses received from the call for expressions of interest will be used to guide the selection of a partner or partners who will work with government to design and implement the project.
The project will see NICIL creating a special purpose company, “financed by debt and equity contributions following a public/private partnership model.”
The call for expressions of interest states clearly that “The GoG (Government of Guyana) is not bound to accept any Expression of Interest.”
A pre-feasibility study was done for the construction of a new river bridge by the Public Works Ministry and has identified the best location for the bridge to be between Houston on the East Bank of Demerara and Versailles on the West Bank of the river.
As it relates to the tolls to be charged, the pre-feasibility study predicts that user tolls were considered to increase at a rate of two per cent per year above the existing regime.
The study did point out that “a detailed feasibility study should be done to incorporate exogenous costs and benefits not considered in this study, as well as a financial analysis that addresses the concerns of project – financing and environmental impacts.”

Head of NICIL, Winston Brassington

The existing two-lane floating bridge was constructed in 1978 by the UK firm Thomas Storey Engineers Limited and had a projected lifespan of 10 years.
From 1995 to 1998 the bridge underwent major rehabilitation by the Damien Ship Yards of The Netherlands at a cost of US$9M, and was given an extended life of 15 years (from 1995).