IDB financed 1st phase of Timehri-Craig Highway only – Pres Ali

– slams “nonsensical, wrong minded” opposition for jumping on a non-issue

In the wake of comments from United States (US) Secretary of State Marco Rubio – comments which the parliamentary opposition has latched on to – President Dr Irfaan has explained that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) funded Timehri-Craig Highway only in its first phase.
The President made these comments during a meeting on the West Bank of Demerara (WBD) over the weekend. During his visit to Guyana last week, Rubio was full of praise for Guyana’s development trajectory and the governance being exhibited by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).
However, the parliamentary opposition – particularly the Alliance For Change (AFC) – chose to sidestep every single one of these issues and latch on to the brief, critical remarks made by Rubio while in Suriname, on the state of the Timehri-Craig East Bank Demerara (EBD) road.

Ali swiftly dismissed the opposition’s opportunism.
“These people are so unpatriotic. Secretary Rubio came and made some of the most important statements about Guyana. About our security, our development, our transformation, our future, our democracy. None of that registered in their head,” President Ali pointed out.
“I want to correct the wickedness they’re publishing. Timehri-Craig is the road under construction financed by the IDB, Not the Chinese. A Chinese firm won the bid advertised by the IDB, after the no-objection by the IDB. And the road, as all of us know, is not completed. It is under construction. That is the road being built by the Chinese, from Timehri-Craig.”
The President noted that the Government took a conscious decision to build these roads in phases that would minimise disruption of traffic, rather than close the entire road to complete all the phases.
“How much times must we explain the same thing? That the first phase is to put in the concrete highways, so we can get the traffic moving? And then the third phase of that road is the overlay of the asphalt. They don’t hear it. Because they have an agenda.”
According to the President, the opposition could have chosen to correct the Secretary of State’s misconceptions about the road. Instead, they went the route of viewing what Rubio said as a “victory” for them.
“Instead of them correcting the Secretary of State, they think that’s a big victory for them. What nonsensical, wrong minded people are these? We are building highways that they said could never be built! And we have to do it in three years! Imagine if we did not have the Schoonord Highway or the Heroes’ Highway?”
“Then we’d have to close the whole highway for the overpass of the bridge. What would happen? But that is the visionless. Their brains have suffered from the concussion of dictatorship. From the concussion of their crimes of the past,” President Ali further added.
The first phase of the new East Bank Demerara (EBD) four-lane highway was the $2.6 billion Mandela Avenue to Eccles Road, which was commissioned by the PPP/C Government back in April of 2022.
The second phase of the road was extended from the Eccles Dumpsite Road all the way to Diamond to the tune of $13.3 billion. The goal is to connect this new highway all the way to Timehri. The Good Success to Timehri leg of the highway is being done by China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC).
Works are also ongoing to connect the EBD to the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) with a bypass road running from Ogle to Eccles. It was announced in January 2022 that Ashoka Buildcon Limited won the contract to construct the Ogle to Eccles Road, ahead of two other Indian companies.
Ashoka has built a number of bridges and roads. RITES Limited, also out of India, secured the US$3.2 million contract for the provision of supervisory services for this bypass project.