THE Ministry of Public Works has issued a call for bids for the rehabilitation and upgrade of the East Coast Demerara corridor between the Mahaica and Abary river bridges.
Under the Request for Bids issued on August 20, 2026, contractors are being invited to construct 27.1 kilometres of dual-carriageway asphalt concrete road in a contract estimated at roughly US$200 million, extending the country’s steadily improving highway network farther along the coast.
The contract, designated Lot 1 of the Integrated Transport Corridors Project (ITCP), is financed through International Development Association credits from the World Bank.
The wider ITCP is designed to deliver climate-resilient, safer road connectivity across Regions Three, Four, Five, Six and 10, addressing a coastline where more than 60 percent of the country’s roads sit on low-lying plains highly exposed to flooding, storms and rising seas.
On the ground, the scope is extensive. The works call for reconstructing the existing road between the two bridges into a dual carriageway with two lanes in each direction, separated carriageways and paved shoulders, alongside 10 new prestressed precast concrete bridges spanning 10 to 15 metres, roughly 750 metres of precast box culverts, more than 20 kilometres of concrete drains and 17 kilometres of earthen drains, plus upgraded road furniture and traffic-safety features.
Those 10 bridges are smaller structures along the route; the three major crossings at the Mahaica, Mahaicony and Abary Rivers themselves are the subject of a separate, related US$45 million design-and-build tender the government is procuring in parallel.
The Public Works Ministry has said the resulting four-lane highway is designed for a 20-year lifespan and will eventually include a median, street lighting, raised crosswalks, and dedicated pedestrian and cattle-crossing signage.
The successful contractor will have 36 months from the commencement date to complete the works.
The road forms the next link in a chain of improvements already transforming the East Coast corridor: a separate US$192 million project widening the highway from Sheriff Street in Georgetown to Mahaica is already more than three-quarters complete, and officials have pointed to the Mahaica-to-Abary stretch, eventually extending to Rosignol, as the natural next phase once that work wraps up.
The Public Works Ministry held a community consultation in July at the Mahaicony Technical and Vocational Training Centre, where Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill and his team met with residents, business owners, motorists and religious leaders to discuss the project’s design and its environmental, social and land-acquisition impacts.
Edghill said affected landowners would receive fair market compensation and that any drainage adjustments would require sign-off from a hydrologic engineer at the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority, while a project consultant added that options for preserving historic railway-era structures along the route are being explored rather than dismissed outright.
To bid, eligible contractors may inspect the bidding documents at the Ministry of Public Works’ offices in Kingston, Georgetown, between 09:00 and 16:00hrs Guyana time, and may request a complete set of the documents by written application or email.
Bids will be evaluated on a 60/40 split between technical and financial criteria, and every submission must include a bid security of US$2,000,000 and a Local Labour Method Statement.
Sealed bids, inclusive of three hard copies plus a non-editable digital copy, must reach the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board at the Ministry of Finance in Georgetown by 09:00hrss on Friday, October 2, 2026.
Technical proposals will be opened publicly that morning in the presence of bidders’ representatives, while financial proposals will remain sealed in NPTAB’s custody until a second public opening, part of the two-envelope process the World Bank requires for projects of this scale.
