It’s been a loooong time coming, but looks like we’re finally gonna get that bridge across the Corentyne River to Suriname. Today there’s gonna be a High-Level Decision Makers (HLDM) Meeting, where the consultants who were hired since last year – WSP Caribbean – will present the US$2M Feasibility Study and Detailed Designs for the Construction of the Bridge to teams headed by ours and Suriname’s Ministers of Public works – Juan Edghill and Dr Riad Nurmohamed respectively. There was one of these HLDM meetings back in February, and your Eyewitness hopes this will be the final one. Too much analysis leads to paralysis, and Lord knows there’s been a surfeit of analysis!!
Now, both the actual model of the physical bridge and the financial and ownership models have already been decided. The Bridge will span the river from our side at a point one and a half miles south of the Moleson Creek Ferry Port to the Suriname-owned Long Island, and then go on to the eastern bank in Suriname. This makes sense, since the river’s effectively narrowest at this point. For a while – because of the plans to collaborate in jointly exploiting the gas that’s coming up from the oil finds off our shore – some thought it might make sense to move it elsewhere.
Of concern to your Eyewitness, however, is who’s gonna have jurisdiction over the Bridge. While 1913 and in 1924 maps – recognised by both sides – state that the deepest point of the river channel – the “thalweg” – is the boundary between our two countries, there have been obstreperous claims by some Surinamese that THEY actually own the river up to the low-water mark on our side!!
These Surinamese have a thing about borders that we’ll have to settle if we’re ever to collaborate successfully!! Those annoying seizures of our fishing boats in the Corentyne River stem from those claims.
The financing model sidesteps this challenge. It’s gonna be a specific type of public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement called the “Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain model” (DBFOM). Meaning that the successful contractor – five have already been shortlisted – of the joint venture will be responsible for the Bridge’s final design, construction, financing, operation, and maintenance.
Questions gonna be raised after the bridge is all paid for, as to who owns what and who controls where!! But from this model, one thing we know is: crossings gonna be very expensive. After all, the financing costs gonna be paid from revenues generated, and there haven’t been that many crossings to date! Unless, of course, the expected oil and gas support vehicles subsidise ordinary commuters!!
In the meantime, your Eyewitness looks forward to speeding over to Suriname – where, unlike our philistines – their capital’s Old World charm and cleanliness have been kept!!
…back pride
After the ignominious defeat of our WI Cricket Team – at the hands of a Dutch pick-up team in the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier!! – WI leaders were understandably apoplectic!! Jeez…how low can you fall?!? Trinidad’s PM Rowley exploded: “Today I saw the worst cricket match ever played by a West Indies team”. Now, that’s saying a lot, since we’ve been playing cricket since the 19th century, when we started to play as a collective team against visiting English teams!!
Rowley, who’d pulled no punches when he predicted the PNC’s 2020 power grab through rigging “will not end well”, continued: “The stench of today’s embarrassment didn’t start today; it had a long gestation period in two decades of disappointment, so those who were “expecting” should not come looking for any exemption here.” And that’s the line we should take. It’s our collective brand as the “West Indies” that gives the cachet to generate the super salaries of the players.
Let’s set rules for representing the WI!!
