Govt working to help bring down cost of sand in Reg 6 – Pres Ali

…to engage stakeholders in coming weeks

Aggregates such as stone and sand are important parts of Guyana’s construction boom, but when the prices for any of these commodities are hiked, it severely disrupts the supply chain. Such is the case currently with the sand price, and according to President Dr Irfaan Ali, the Government is working to address this.
The President made these comments during the sod-turning for the New Amsterdam General Hospital at the National Psychiatric Hospital site in Region Six, on Sunday. While the President was optimistic of the timely start of the project, he also acknowledged that the price of aggregates such as sand, is an issue.

“One of the hindrances that we have in this region, and I want to address it very early, is the availability and price for sand. And we’re not a Government that ducks and run, you know. This is a Government that confronts every challenge and brings a solution to it,” the President said.
“We recognise the challenge that the pace of development is so intense in this region, that no one would have estimated the growth of construction and the pace of development in this region. And as a result, the demand is outstripping the supply. And then we have some of the suppliers, who believe this is the time to cash in.”
According to him, the Government will have to step in by bringing together all the stakeholders in the region in a “perfect union” that would seek to address what are the root causes of the price increase and eradicate “artificial escalations” in prices.
“The perfect union is for all the stakeholders in the region to recognise where we’re going now and to contribute in their own small way, to remove artificial escalation. And artificial escalation is where you escalate just because of demand. And work on normalising the cost and all the components required for development.”
According to the President, in the next three weeks, the Government will meet with key stakeholders including the private sector and, specifically, suppliers of sand, to iron out a way of bringing down costs… possibly even deploying the Government’s assets to normalise the situation in Region Six.
“Where this balance is required, the Government must play a part. And that is why, within the next three/four weeks, we’re going to work on specific mechanisms, just like we did for stone. When we came into Government, there was a global shortage. Stone went to $15,000 per tonne.”
“The idea is how do we address this problem. And just as stone went to $15,000 per tonne, the Government intervened and brought up the scale. Because when we start to procure and scale, now we’re able to bring stone down to $10,000 per tonne, in some cases $9500 per tonne. And we have to do this for sand in this region.”
Since the People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s (PPP/C) return to office, the construction boom has also led to a greater demand for aggregates. This has prompted the Government to make efforts to ensure there are adequate supplies.
For 2020, just about 650,000 tonnes of materials were produced. The next year, the Government announced it was working with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to up production of construction aggregates to over one million tonnes. The production rate for quarriable substances had been much lower than the demand in previous years.
President Ali had also revealed last year that as many as 20 companies are vying to establish concrete plants, as the demand grew with the PPP/C Government’s housing drive and ambitious construction goals. And in 2021, the 1 million mark was surpassed when over 1.65 million tonnes of aggregates were recorded.
In 2022, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had said that the massive road projects for the public sector in 2023 would require a whopping six million tonnes of aggregates. For this, he had shared that Government was exploring various options to keep the construction sector going. Neighbouring countries such as Suriname and Trinidad were also unable to fulfil these needs.
The production of aggregates has since risen dramatically, however, with the last Bank of Guyana half-year report revealing that in the first half of 2023, over 4.2 million tonnes in construction aggregates (sand and stone) were declared. While sand declarations recorded a 52.6 per cent increase, crushed stone also recorded a 71.7 per cent increase.