–President Ali urges contractor to complete Schoonord-Crane four-lane highway on time

PRESIDENT, Dr Irfaan Ali has spared no effort in reminding contractors that there will be consequences if the $11.8 billion four-lane highway from Schoonord to Crane, West Coast Demerara is delayed.
President Ali visited the site to inspect the ongoing works on Saturday.

“You’re not going past April with this, [you] know that right,” the President reminded the contractor.
As the contractor told the President that two sections are approximately 90-95 per cent complete, Dr Ali did not hesitate to remind him about his contractual obligations.

“There’s no excuse…You have to work 24 hours every day,” President Ali said as he was informed of the works that are progressing.
The contractor also informed the President that works on the roundabout are advancing and two layers of asphalt have been placed along with the installation of concrete drains.

The $11.8 billion four-lane highway from Schoonord, West Bank Demerara to Crane, West Coast Demerara is expected to be completed by June 2024.
Contracts were awarded in September 2022 to several contractors by the Ministry of Housing and Water for the construction of a four-lane highway.

The contractors are VR Construction Inc., Avinash Contracting & Scrap Metal Inc., L’Heureuse Construction and Services Inc., GuyAmerica Construction Inc., AJM Enterprise, Vals Construction, Puran Bros Disposal Inc., and JS Guyana Inc.
The project will see the construction of 4.1 kilometers (km) of a dual carriageway reinforced concrete road with an emergency lane as well as 2.4 km of road rehabilitation and upgrade.

It will also feature two roundabouts, 11 reinforced concrete box culverts, 36 pre-stressed bridges, and road signage and markings. A new roundabout will connect the West Coast Demerara Highway to the new Schoonord to Crane Highway.

To ease traffic congestion along the West Bank and West Coast of Demerara and with the speed of development in Region Three, President Ali, previously acknowledged the necessity of a new four-lane highway.
Owing to the rapid pace of development, this highway will precede the planned construction of a four-lane highway from Schoonord to Parika on the East Bank of Essequibo (EBE).

This potential road link, President Ali said, will open thousands of acres of land for housing, massive agriculture and agro-related projects, and tourism and other related activities.
The construction of this particular road, however, is merely a component of a broader plan to modernise the country’s infrastructure and create myriad alternative and more convenient linkages.

At the centre of those plans is the intended construction of a new ‘fly-over’ Demerara Harbour Bridge, which will stretch from Nandy Park on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD) to La Grange, WBD.
The new four-lane, high-span bridge, once completed, will replace the existing structure which was built in 1976, over four decades ago.