Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 16, 2022 News
Kaieteur News – Former Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson is questioning the $1 billion that Public Works Minister, Juan Edghill said was spent so far to rehabilitate the recently damaged Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB).
On the sidelines of an event on Friday, Patterson in response to a question from this newspaper said he “absolutely” will be questioning the sum Government claims to have spent to put the floating structure back into operation, after a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker, MV ‘Tradewinds Passion’, filled with fuel for the Guyana Oil Company Limited (GUYOIL) crashed into it two Saturdays ago.
He reasoned, “I find it a phenomenal amount of money. Obviously and this is not the first time I mean if you could remember a sand barge from Panama, I think, collided with the bridge and we (Coalition) held it and I think at that time it was no more than $70 to $80 million, that’s about 2018 or 2019.”
Further Patterson noted that only last month a similar incident occurred which cost the Government in excess of $40 million. To this end, he explained that since the recent occurrence was just over $40 million, an incident 10 times more extreme could have costs at around $400 million but the bill has reached $1 billion and is still counting according to the subject Minister.
The former Minister of Public Infrastructure explained, “Good luck to them if they think that they can recoup that money, but that is a phenomenal amount of money and obviously the best fastest and easiest way to launder money…is to say its emergency.”
Furthermore, he pointed out that $1 billion worth of repair works “is (an) extremely high amount of work to be done in three days.”
The DHB was closed off to vehicular traffic for a total of three days, following the incident during the wee hours of the morning on October 8. It was finally reopened to light vehicular traffic last Monday evening after the major repair works were conducted.
On Thursday last Edghill made it clear, however, that monies are still being spent on the structure. He said, “…while everybody is saying that traffic is flowing and moving they are still working miracles below (conducting repair works underneath the bridge), changing out pontoons and doing all kinds of things while still facilitating movement of people and goods to ensure that commerce is moving…Its nowhere near finish.”
Edghill noted too that the bridge does not only have to be functional for vehicular traffic alone but also for marine traffic and in order for this to happen the retraction must be working well. The Minister explained that marine traffic is important too because it ensures that fuel and other basic supplies enter the country. Nevertheless, he said, works have advanced significantly and this is because of the hard work the engineers have put in to make the bridge partially operable again.
He iterated, however, that owners of the vessel will have to foot the bill.
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