Brassington cites Berbice River Bridge as successful model

CHIEF Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), Mr. Winston Brassington, has said the US$41M Berbice River Bridge succeeded in reducing transportation constraints.He was speaking Wednesday, at a Public/Private Partnership Seminar held during the 44th Annual Meeting of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Board of Governors at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown.
According to Brassington, the benefits of the project for the country were marked by the significant and essential assistance of the initiative in the reduction of transporting time to cross the river, from three hours by ferry to three minutes using the bridge.

He noted that the financing of the construction was broad-based and ushered in the commitment of the top five banks in the country, the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and the Hand-In-Hand Group of Companies.
According to him, the revenue collection from it is governed by the Berbice River Bridge Act which was passed in Parliament and provided for a concession agreement, through which annual tolls could be adjusted in order to ensure sufficient charges are collected to outweigh the operating and maintenance costs as well as servicing capital of the massive Public Private Partnership (PPP) venture.
Brassington said the bridge, having been opened in December 2008, the projected tolls for which feasibility studies were conducted to corroborate profits, as regards the willingness to pay, reflected that passengers were expected to pay for vehicles using the ferry as well as for each passenger.

SINGLE TOLL
However, the bridge managed to eradicate this system by setting in place a single toll, which included all passengers for a flat rate that provided round trip usage of the structure under the benefit principle for taxation.
Given that cars and minibuses constitute 95 percent of the passenger revenue accumulated yearly, the tolls on the bridge were similar to what had been paid while using the ferry service and that base rate remained constant throughout, in excess of ten years, from the time of the commission of the multi-million-dollar edifice, according to Brassington.
The NICIL CEO maintained that, in real terms, inflation has been 67 percent from the time of the bridge opening, so it therefore translates that the rate demanded from passengers is substantially less than what was being paid on the ferry in 2005.
He confirmed that the level of revenue collected from tolls has increased slightly, reflecting an overall increase of between four percent and eight percent in any one year.
Brassington said, in reviewing the revenue and performance, there is some laudability in examining the projected level of revenue accumulation and noting a steady growth in both passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles accessing the bridge’s service.
Commenting on the benefits of Public/Private Partnership between Government and Private Sector, Brassington reaffirmed that there is recognition of the concession type model as a useful mechanism to fund infrastructural development aimed at reducing the eventuality of incurring fiscal risk of domestic public debt.

(By Derwayne Wills )