–management of facility to be separate from that of Demerara Harbour Bridge

THE new $650 million Eco 2,000 Batch Mix Asphalt Plant, located at Garden of Eden, on the East Bank of Demerara, will be fully activated by April 6, 2021, Chairman of the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation, Ravie Ramcharitar, has said.
“So far we have spent $590 million on this plant and a further $60 million thereabout needs to be spent or paid… the total investment is about $650 million on this equipment and few other auxiliary services,” Ramcharitar said following a tour of the site with Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, on Friday.
The $488 million German-manufactured machinery arrived in Guyana in July 2019, but was installed in January 7, 2020.
Once fully activated, the asphalt plant, which is currently managed by the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation, will be able to produce at a maximum capacity of 160 tonnes per hour.

Ramcharitar noted that this is a significant improvement from the existing plant which currently produces 50 tonnes per hour. Additionally, the new plant has a mobile unit which produces 10 tonnes per hour.
“This plant is supposed to deliver more efficiency in the production and usage of materials and that ought to bring some cost savings; however, that has to be evaluated very carefully and we would decide upon that after maybe two weeks of full commercial operations,” Ramcharitar said.
With most of the groundwork already in place, managers of the plant will be looking to complete the remaining work which includes the installation of an office, a lab and a scale. The impending activation of the facility comes against the backdrop of a recent audit into the asphalt plant, which revealed that the weighing of asphalt was done at the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation, which is located approximately ten miles away from the plant, instead of paying for it to be weighed at a scale located next door for approximately $3,000.

SEPARATE MANAGEMENT
Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, said that following a public process, which involved the submission of applications, a plant manager for the facility will be selected in the new week subsequent to the final determination of the interview panel.
He noted too that while one board of directors will oversee the operations of the bridge and plant, there will now be a separate management team at the asphalt plant.
“We want to avoid the intermingling, and also the intermingling of finances. There must be clear lines of demarcation of monies available to the plant and the DHB separately, so that is a work in progress and we should have a new plant manager very soon,” Edghill said.
The minister, however, said that there are some areas of concern which should be addressed, specifically the after-sale service to ensure that the necessary spares are available for the plant and adequate training for persons to operate and troubleshoot the plant.

“I have instructed today [Friday] that we have a wider pool of persons to be trained and equip for the management of the plant, nobody should have a monopoly or leverage. We must have multiple persons capable of doing the same thing, so that in the event of anything we have several people who can make the necessary interventions,” he reasoned. He advised that the recommendations of the audit must continue to be implemented to ensure greater managerial control at the plant.
“This is a profitable entity that once properly managed, pays for itself and could provide funding to do so many other things in terms of Guyana’s development… the market allows for that. “We as a government, we are not going to be putting private sector people out of business but we want to ensure that we are part of the competition if not the gold standard in terms of setting the price on the market because once we are able to economically reduce cost of production of asphalt, it means the cost of a road could go down,” Minister Edghill said.
He opined that it is time that the delayed project becomes operational and provides benefits to the Guyanese people.