US$117M IDB-funded EBD development project launched

The US$117 million Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-funded “Programme to Support Climate Resilient Road Infrastructure Development” was launched on Tuesday to support climate resilient road infrastructure along the East Bank of Demerara (EBD) corridor.
This comes after the loan contract between the IDB and Guyana was signed in March to advance Guyana’s safe, efficient and climate resilient road and associated infrastructure.
Under this project, US$100 million is being funded by the IDB, while US$17 million is from the Government of Guyana.
Aimed at improving road service quality and utility service, this programme is particularly important as the East Bank corridor is connected to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport and the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
Project Manager within the Public Works Ministry Mark Greene explained that the main focus of this project is to rehabilitate the approximately 24 km of roadway encountered upon exiting the airport.
“More or less, after exiting the airport, you’re going to enter the East Bank Public Road which was rehabilitated under a loan almost 30 years ago,” Greene said.
“Unfortunately, it hasn’t reached its design life and the intervention that we’re focusing on under the loan would be to rehabilitate, maintain and also improve the roadway especially for safety of all road users,” he explained.
Within this road rehabilitation, the Ministry will be adding in facilities for safe road usage by non-motorised traffic, specifically pedestrians and cyclists, as well as improving street lighting and drainage, and relocating utilities.
The loan also covers the updating of the transport sector plan with provisions for funding two pre-investment studies of infrastructure works, strengthening of the Work Services Group (WSG) and improving of gender involvement from females through internships at the Ministry.
Road safety also forms a key component of this programme, with provisions put in place to improve the measurement of traffic through more speed cameras and licence plate recognition cameras, as well as road safety awareness campaigns.
“Under the loan, there’s a lot of measures in place to ensure not only there’s adherence to environmental and social safeguards, but also ensuring that there’s continued consultations with stakeholders,” Greene added.
According to Greene, there are more than 62,000 vehicles using the East Bank roadways on a daily basis, with 26 per cent of that being truck traffic.

Traffic congestion
Public Works Minister Juan Edghill emphasised the need for the development of this corridor as traffic congestion is a major issue, adding that the Ministry is taking a comprehensive approach towards this project.
“This project entails fixing some other ancillary roads, the bridges and culverts and structures to ensure that we get a comprehensive approach,” Edghill said.
He added that this project is also crucial as the country’s tourism sector expands, with the country seeing some 660,000 arrivals last year.
“We are developing our tourism potential. We are working on establishing our ecotourism activity and lots of that will take place along the Linden-Soesdyke Highway. It really is good for [to] facilitate that,” Edghill said.
“I believe US$100 million investment is a worthwhile investment, because it’s an investment towards the development agenda of a massive transformation that is taking place in Guyana,” he said.