ANOTHER round of procedures leading up to the award of a contract for the proposed extension of the four-lane East Bank thoroughfare has been completed.
Reached for a status update yesterday, Transport and Planning Officer in the Ministry of Works, Rabindranauth Chandarpaul, said members of the evaluation committee of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board have concluded evaluating the bids submitted by six contracting companies, and have submitted their report and recommendations. The six companies competing for the civil works are Jamaica-based companies, Surrey Paving & Aggregate Company, and Y.T. Seaton & Associates; DIPCON, a Trinidad company; and local companies General Earth Movers and Geico Construction, B.K. International, and R. Bassoo & Sons, in association with B&J Construction.
The next process involves getting “no objection” from the Inter-American Development Bank which, along with the Government of Guyana, is the project financers, the National Procurement and Tender Board, and Cabinet.
And Chandarpaul has expressed optimism that an award of the contract could be in another two weeks.

The project has been divided into three lots: Lot 1, starting at New Providence and ending at Prospect Village,  in the vicinity of the Guyana Water Inc. installation; Lot 2, from Prospect to Diamond, near the Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) plant; and Lot 3 from DDL to the Diamond Grove intersection.
The project is projected to cost overall US$22M, with US$20M being provided by the Inter-American Development Bank, through a loan, and the remaining US$2M being provided by the Government of Guyana.
The highway extension works will include the construction of bridges and culverts, vehicle parking, bicycle lanes, pedestrian crossings and bus stops, in an effort to increase safety and significantly reduce disruption of the traffic flow.
The current four-lane thoroughfare stretches from Ruimveldt in Georgetown and ends at New Providence.