Bridges and development

Today the spanking new, iconic US$262M Demerara Harbour Bridge will be inaugurated by President Irfaan Ali. It should be seen as one aspect – albeit an outsized one – of the PPP/C’s focus on transportation infrastructure, which is widely accepted as a threshold developmental initiative that is critical for sustainable long-term prosperity for any nation. After all, the movement of goods and services is essential for economic growth. Without transportation, there would be no mass production, no economies of scale, and nothing would be accessible outside of what could be grown or produced in the local marketplace. Transportation allows equilibrium of supply and demand at a higher level. A company can produce the most desired product in the world, but if it doesn’t get to market, it won’t benefit the consumer, and it won’t generate revenue.
Because of the happenstance of climate and geography, we are a “land of many waters” on the Guiana Shield, with the waters flowing in creeks and rivers that criss-cross our 83,000 square miles generally from our interior into the Atlantic Ocean. While these rivers might have facilitated the movement of early settlers inside the country for taking labour and supplies for their farming and mining endeavours and for the gold and agricultural produce to the coastal harbours, they proved to be barriers when they needed to be crossed. This was especially true on the coastland, which was the last to be settled since the mouths of the rivers and creeks are widest at the point of confluence with the Atlantic.
The first roads on the coastland followed the Atlantic Ocean, and they had to be constructed and maintained by the plantations that abutted it going inland. Government ferries at the intersection of these roads and rivers transported people and goods across the rivers while bridges were constructed over creeks. The floating Demerara Harbour Bridge, built in 1978 by the PNC Government, was conceded by all to have long exceeded its promised 25-year lifespan. Sections of the purported “longest floating bridge in the world” were floating down the river long before the PNC Government demitted office in 1992. In the 33 years since, it was only through an expensive, rigorous, continuous retrofitting and maintenance schedule by the PPP/C Government that kept it afloat and viable.
In 2013, a pre-feasibility study done by a local team assembled by the PPP/C administration had recommended a fixed, high-level four-lane concrete structure to replace the floating structure. But when the PNC/APNU/AFC coalition took office, this was shelved, and they proposed a low-level, three-lane structure, of which a portion would have to be hydraulically lifted to allow passage to ocean-going ships. Since one of the biggest bugbears of commuters across the structure was that their lives were governed by its “openings and closings”, the Government would have summarily dismissed this objection. The design was “sole sourced” rather than “competitively bid for” to a company, LIEVENSE CSO, for US$250,000. It had to be soon abandoned, however, when it was even mocked by the Chinese Ambassador, who was forced to diplomatically remark it was backward.
Be that as it may, the new DHB is now complete and should not only reprieve the millions of man-hours lost by the occupants of the 13,000 vehicles that now cross the Demerara River daily through the interminable delays but should also permit ships to ply the river 24/7 under its high span. With the “West Side” developing by leaps and bounds, agriculturally and manufacturing-wise, the transportation of goods will become more efficient at relatively lower costs. This will have a feedback effect for companies since they would be able to ship their merchandise to export locations and on to international markets much easier. The ease or difficulty with which companies can transport goods within Guyana can affect their competitiveness in global trade, which is needed for us to generate foreign exchange to develop our country.
The Government has already announced that construction of a similar fixed-span bridge across the Berbice River will start imminently.