By Imran Khan

THE whole brouhaha over the threatened Berbice Bridge toll increase stinks to high heavens. It is reminiscent of another project which was attempted in Georgetown in recent times and was resoundingly condemned by the vast majority of the society. But what exactly is the source of this stench at the Berbice Bridge?

Why would the Berbice Bridge Company Inc (BBCI) seek to increase tolls from $1900 to an obscene, bizarre and completely unaffordable $8040? Why would the BBCI seek to commence the toll increase on the day of Local Government Elections – Monday November 12? Something is rotten.

The Minority Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has been selling this conspiracy theory that it is the coalition government which initiated this proposed increase. The coalition government would have to be insane to propose such; it simply makes no sense whatsoever.

To understand what is at play, one must understand that though the NIS is the majority shareholder in the BBCI, the NIS has just one vote; the real decision- makers are the other shareholders, who are shrouded in secrecy but are suspected to be comrades and confederates of Minority Leader Jagdeo.

It was most curious to observe how when he was cornered at a press conference by journalists Gordon Moseley and Marcell Thomas, Jagdeo squirmed and became furious and evasive, then abruptly ended his press conference. He could not provide credible answers to questions related to the financial model for the Berbice River Bridge when pointed questions were asked. He was unwilling and seemingly unable to discuss details of the financial model he had been boisterously touting and waving about.

The naked truth would have exposed him for the quackonomist he is.

JAGDEO’S BRIDGE LIES
LIE ONE: Jagdeo claims that the bridge toll was set at a rate equivalent to what was being paid for a vehicle to cross on the ferry. This is disingenuous. The rate of $2200 is NOT equivalent to what was the cost of a vehicle to cross on the Rosignol/New Amsterdam ferry; $2200 is what it would cost for a vehicle FILLED WITH FIVE PASSENGERS.

Jagdeo has been repeating this bald-faced lie ad nauseam.

LIE TWO: Jagdeo is maintaining that the financial model is viable. This has been proven to be completely fake. The model was horrendously flawed. It was based on a premise that large volumes of vehicles would utilise the bridge on a daily basis at the high rate of toll. This has not come to fruition because the original toll rate set was extraordinarily high. So persons use the bridge only when they absolutely need to. Take a drive across the bridge at any time and you will see that there are hardly any vehicles using it at any one time. This is unlike the Demerara Harbour Bridge, which has dozens and dozens of vehicles on it at any moment of time during daylight hours and traffic comes to a virtual standstill during peak hours.

There are some central questions which need to be answered.

QUESTION ONE

Why was Jagdeo unable to get any major credible international financier to back the Berbice Bridge when it was built? Why did not a single credible international financier even want to touch it with a 1,000-foot pole? Could it be because they all knew that the financial model which Jagdeo was touting was flawed and untenable?

QUESTION TWO
Why was the bridge located between D’Edward Village and Palmyra and not at the other locations where the Berbice River was narrower and which were more highly recommended?
QUESTION THREE
Why was the bridge done as a floating bridge instead of a high-span bridge?

QUESTION FOUR
How it is that the toll to cross the Demerara Harbour Bridge, which was built under the PNC administration remains, to this day, $200 for personal vehicles but under Bharrat’s supposedly brilliant Berbice Bridge model, the toll was set at $2200, some 1100% more? How can this make any sense?

The explosive truth is that based on who the investors are with their suspected close associations to Jagdeo himself, this Berbice Bridge Project is the PPP’s Parking Meter Heist. Perhaps it was where the purveyors of the Georgetown Parking Meter Project got their idea to impose parking meters in the city. The GT crew tried a ‘ting’ and were thwarted, mainly by Sherod Duncan under the Alliance For Change banner and civil society operatives, who joined the crusade to block the project. Now it falls on another AFC-ranking member, Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson, to thwart the efforts being made to extort monies from the Berbice bridge users.

Life under the Jagdeo regime was not as it is today. Critics and opposers of the government were not free to speak up and speak out, they were dealt with harshly, banned and silenced. Jagdeo, while he was President, cleverly cloaked and contrived to execute this Berbice Bridge project while using Berbicians as pawns in his financial gain game. It was shrouded in secrecy and very few knew what were the backroom arrangements contrived among close confidants.

And now he is puffing and panting at pitiful press conferences and on party platforms, desperately trying to keep a lid on the shaky and dubious financial model that he concocted. Time up Bharrat, your scheme is exposed. Own up to your quackanomics.

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