The infrastructural development of the Enmore, East Coast Demerara (ECD) industrial zone, an important project the Government has said will create numerous economic opportunities on the ECD and create as much as 4000 jobs, has attracted multiple bids from local companies.
The industrial zone is being built in lots one to six, and according to the bids that were opened at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), as many as ten companies submitted bids. B&J Civil Works bid for lots one, two and three. However, the remaining firms did not restrict themselves.
Abrams General Contracting Service Inc, R Kissoon Contracting Service, R Bassoo and Son construction, Pro Build Hardware, Sat Sais International, M&P Investment Incorporated, Nabi Construction, R&G Bacchus Mining, Quality Deliverer, Associated Construction Services and J&R General Construction Services bid for all six available lots.
Preparatory work including the clearing of obstacles and construction of internal roads, has already started on the Enmore industrial zone, which will be situated on land formerly used by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
As far back as 2021, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has been making it clear there are major plans to convert the Enmore Sugar Estate that was closed under the former Administration of A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC), into an employment hub for the ECD.
The private sector has also come on board, with an agreement being signed last year for majority Guyanese-owned joint venture company Guysons K+B (GKB) Industries Inc, which has acquired 55 acres of land in Enmore from the Guyana Government, to establish a fabrication facility that would be offering services to the oil and gas industry.
The services to be offered would include tubular goods, premium threading and accessory services, as well as turnkey manufacturing solutions. Over 500 job opportunities are expected to be created over the next five years with the coming on stream of this US$35 million investment.
The company also started a training needs assessment and administrative process last year to employ over 40 workers from GuySuCo’s Enmore Sugar Packaging Facility, in keeping with an agreement with the State to train and employ Enmore sugar workers at the industrial development site.
When the Enmore Estate was closed back in 2017, hundreds of sugar workers from Enmore and surrounding communities along the East Coast corridor were placed on the breadline, like other displaced GuySuCo workers from the Wales, Albion and Skeldon Estates that were also shut down by the coalition regime.
Since it was in the Opposition, the PPP/C had promised to reopen those estates and revive the sugar industry to its once-thriving status. However, upon the PPP/C assuming office in August 2020, it was discovered that the condition of some of the estates, such as Wales, was too deteriorated to reopen. As such, the Dr Irfaan Ali-led Government has since been undertaking several initiatives to create employment opportunities at those estates that cannot be revived to produce sugar.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had assured last year that these initiatives are being carried out in a “studied way” to not only create jobs but also develop those communities that were devastated owing to the closure of the estates.
In fact, at the Enmore Estate, Jagdeo had explained that the Government has allocated a 10-acre plot of land for development that will generate between 500 and 700 jobs in Enmore and surrounding areas.
This, he noted, coupled with the agreement signed with Guysons K+B Industries Inc (GKB), which will transform the Enmore Packaging Plant into a modern oilfield service centre and manufacturing facility, will see even more retrenched workers being hired.
