Several weeks ago, I had intended just one column on misconduct in office by A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Ministers and officials. The example of misconduct in office I wanted to highlight was the new Demerara River Bridge Project. But for several weeks now I have had to defer writing about that specific example of misconduct in office. There were other examples of misconduct that got my attention. It is, in fact, very difficult to choose which example of the several daily misconduct in office scandals to highlight.
In fact, right this minute there are several egregious examples of gross misconduct in office that should really bother people and lead to national outrage. But I will keep my promise this week to highlight the misconduct in office of the Infrastructure Minister. The mismanagement of the new Demerara River Bridge Project is inept, but it also stinks with corruption and clearly exemplifies misconduct in office that unfortunately is the hallmark of this Government.
Even as news spreads like wildfire that the APNU/AFC Administration has abandoned the three-lane designed fixed bridge that they had announced and which was supposed to begin construction this year, even after they had short-listed contractors, come more news that the Minister is now recommending that the old bridge will remain in usage after the construction of the new bridge.
The Minister sprung this surprise, announced by the Minister of the Presidency, without informing Parliament and without ever discussing with the public this possibility. He has not explained what this means for the people of Guyana, what kind of additional expense it will incur, what will happen with the tolls. For example, the toll on the new bridge is likely to be higher, to take into consideration the expensive nature of the new bridge.
If the old bridge will have a lower toll, would drivers prefer continued use of the old bridge and would this place more pressure for an even higher toll on the new bridge in order to meet the obligation of cost-recovery?
The Minister ignored the fact that this project was already advanced during the former People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government’s tenure. During the PPP regime, a study was done that identified two sites and recommended a four-lane concrete fixed high-rise bridge.
The PPP was in the process of deciding whether the cost was too exorbitant and was in the process of deciding which location was the preferable one. The PPP also wanted to know whether building a bridge alongside the present one made sense.
Several millions of dollars were already expended on these studies. The Infrastructure Minister and his APNU/AFC Cabinet colleges behaved as if the Demerara River Bridge Project was born only after May 2015. They completely ignored the existence of studies that the Guyanese taxpayers had paid for, all because of political arrogance and because they wanted to delink any association with the PPP.
They proceeded to contract consultants without any tendering and paid those consultants $146 million. Those consultants appeared to only consider sites they were instructed to examine. They recommended building a bridge from Houston, Greater Georgetown on the East Bank Demerara and ending at Versailles, West Bank Demerara, on private property owned by an APNU/AFC donor and activist. They proposed a miraculous twist in order for the bridge to end up on that property.
The consultants had recommended a three-lane fixed concrete structure. The Minister then informed the Guyanese people that a tender would invite contractors to bid to build the bridge. Later he informed us that there was a short list and that construction would start this year. But there was a problem right away. No one could find any allocation in Budget 2018 that catered for construction to start this year.
Now we know why there was no allocation of funds to start the construction of the new Demerara River bridge in Budget 2018. It is that the Minister and his APNU/AFC colleagues were playing games with us.
They had no intention to follow the recommendation of their own hand-picked consultants. Now, they tell us that their chosen contractor will design a four-lane concrete fixed bridge, just as the consultants recommended in the study completed under the PPP.
Just on a whim, they abandoned the $146 million study done by their hand-picked consultants. The story gets worse – their chosen contractor would design and build the bridge at a cost they will determine. We are buying a “pig in a poke”. This clearly is irresponsible, reckless, misconduct in office.
