The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government continues to roll out its development plan for the country, but inevitably, since waving a wand in the real world is not an option and our country is so vast, there will be a differential geographical expression through time. Since much of the initial impetus had to be geared towards servicing oil production activities from our 11+ billion reserves under our Atlantic, Berbice and Essequibo, unfortunately, seemed to have drawn the shorter straw when Exxon started producing oil off the Demerara Coast from the Stabroek Block.
Berbice had been hit especially hard when the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government went out of its way to ignore the recommendations of its own Commission of Inquiry, and shuttered two of the three sugar estates in Region Six – Skeldon and Rose Hall. This was a blow to their solar plexus since the sugar industry had remained the largest employer – outside of the largely peasant-based rice industry, always challenged by low paddy prices. There was no vent for the thousands of persons thrown into the breadline – including those employed by private cane farmers that supplied those two estates. The plans for bagasse-fuelled power co-generation to supply electricity to Berbicians had to be shelved, along with the production of ethanol for fuel and plantation-white sugar. It was not just the fired sugar workers and their families that suffered through the loss of income to provide even a sustenance existence, but the businesses and services that they would have supported.
The Government recognised this predicament from the moment it was allowed to assume office after APNU/AFC’s five-month-long attempted election rigging. It announced the reopening of Rose Hall Estate, but, unfortunately, it had fallen into such a state of decrepitude, it is still a work in progress. However, Berbice was an integral part of the Government’s overall strategic developmental plan for Guyana. The interior intermediate savannahs were identified for the diversification of our agricultural base through the production of soybean, corn and millet. 12,000 acres of corn and soya were cultivated in 2024 by private industry, with Government investing billions in infrastructure. This acreage will increase exponentially. The plan is also to be self-sufficient with black-eyed and red beans by 2025. These will not only satisfy our own needs – such as the feed for poultry and cattle – but the export market.
Strategically, the PPP Government had long identified the need for a deep-water harbour and a port in Berbice to facilitate its own economic needs, with the former to export its agricultural commodities such as rice, sugar, soybean, etc. There was also the opportunity for Brazilian exports from adjoining Roraima state and Manaus, to avoid the long, expensive trip on the Amazon River to the Atlantic and use our deep-water harbour – after a bypass to Berbice is constructed on the Lethem-Georgetown Highway. On the port, CGX Energy announced last December that its long-promised Berbice Port with one wharf, managed by its subsidiary Grand Canal Industrial Estates Inc, was open and had handled the offloading of a barge with aggregate. However, nothing has been announced since. Last Saturday, however, President Dr Irfaan Ali announced in New Amsterdam that a consortium: Cranes Guyana – formed by veteran shipping companies John Fernandes and Muneshwers – will be soon turning the sod for a US$285 million port in Berbice.
The President also took the opportunity to summarise aspects of development plans for Berbice. He picked up on Exxon’s Longtail project – which includes the development of the Longtail, Tripletail and Turbot gas fields – that will produce up to 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of natural gas to be pipelined by Exxon to Berbice. As in the Wales Gas-to-Shore project, the Government will be catalysing Private-Public Projects that include a fertilizer plant, an AI Data Center and an Alumina Plant. Additionally, there is already the Private Sector development project that included hotels, a cricket stadium, a hospital, etc, at Palmyra.
Since these projects all lie ahead, Berbicians, in the meantime, should be using the Government’s programmes in place to become trained in the skills that would be needed.
