Bids for Ogle to Eccles 4-lane road to be submitted in August – Min Edghill

US$50M bypass road project

– financial bids to come from companies prequalified in May

As works and procurement for various aspects of the bypass road linking the East Coast and East Bank corridors progress, Public Works Minister Juan Edghill has said that financial bids for the Ogle to Eccles four-lane road component of the project will be submitted in August.

In an invited comment, the Minister told this publication that the financial bids will be forthcoming from the four companies that were previously pre-qualified for the project by the Indian Government back in May 2021.
“What is happening is that we have the procurement process for the Ogle to Eccles component, which is the US$50 million project. We have four companies that are pre-qualified and they should be submitting their financial bids in another (couple of months), August,” he explained.
The four Indian companies that were prequalified in May, will be vying to construct a four-lane bypass road that will link the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) at Ogle to the East Bank of Demerara (EBD) at Haags Bosch in Eccles.
Edghill had previously told this newspaper after the tender was issued and the companies have submitted their bids, Guyana would have 21 days to evaluate the proposals and award the contract for the tune of $10.4 billion.
Back in 2015, the Indian Government had provided a US$50 million Line of Credit (LOC) for the road link that was initially slated for Ogle to Diamond, EBD. However, the project cost was driven up to over $208 million by the previous A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) regime and the project was at a standstill since 2019.
However, when the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government took office last year it redesigned the project into two phases to fit the LOC – the first from Ogle to Haags Bosch road, which is about 50 per cent of the project, and the second, from Haags Bosch to Diamond – in order to fit the US$50 million LOC. Another aspect of the project will see the road going all the way to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) in Timehri.
In a previous interview with Guyana Times, Indian High Commissioner, Dr KJ Srinivasa had explained that while an Indian company was required to do the construction as per the LOC terms and conditions, Guyanese could also expect to benefit from the project.
“As per the line of credit norms for India, whenever we give lines of credit, we insist on a 75 per cent Indian content. But for Guyana, we’ve made a special exemption, which will be 47 per cent content only from India. So, the remaining 53 per cent will be locally sourced in Guyana. I think this will fall perfectly in your local content policy and we also would appreciate that the local people can get jobs and local producers can be able to sell their… raw materials that are required for making the road,” Dr Srinivasa had related to this newspaper.
The bypass road will create a new highway in the backlands, thus allowing for an alternative route to the country’s two main thoroughfares. This project will see a total of 26 kilometres of road constructed with links to connect key communities in Georgetown and along the East Bank of Demerara. These include Diamond, Mocha and Eccles – all on the East Bank – and Aubrey Barker Road in Georgetown. These connections will prove crucial in diverting traffic.
Meanwhile, Government has undertaken several new road projects along the EBD corridor to ease the heavy traffic congestion normally encountered there. These include an alternative road connecting Diamond and Eccles.
The new road will run from Sixth Avenue, Diamond, to the Windsor Estate Road that leads on to the Eccles Landfill Site Road. This will form a connection through the new Herstelling Housing Scheme and other schemes that are being developed along the EBD corridor.
A second road is also being constructed between Eccles and Mandela Avenue, which will be completed later this year. Last month, the Housing Ministry signed several contracts to the tune of $2.3 billion for the commencement of work on this road.