…and connecting
Once again, a new Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) is in the news. The last time it was in the news was right after the PNC (let’s cut to the chase) slid into office in 2015 and their Infrastructure Minister Patterson, promised he’d have a new DHB ready by 2018. Well, that promise is in the same category with Burnham’s promise to deliver hydroelectric power on the Mazaruni. Fifty years later, all the Guyanese people got was HYDROcele!!
One thing about the PNC…they can sure “talk fat”! But all they end up fattening are their bank accounts. SOCU has been disbanded, so we wonder whether the Police have taken over the SOCU case against Patterson – to recover the $153 million he forked over for some Dutch company to give him a cockamamie plan for the Bridge. Rather than the confusion and congestion caused by the old floating bridge RETRACTING to allow ships to head upriver, the new one would’ve been RAISED to deliver the same confusion and congestion!!
Anyhow, here we have a newly-minted PPP Infrastructure Minister, who’s hit the ground running with a much more realistic plan. He announced that he’s already received FORTY expressions of interest. He also announced that the new Bridge would be sited a mile upstream from La Grange on the West Bank to Peters Hall on the East Bank. Now, right away this would’ve caused conniptions in the PNC camp, since Stanley Ming had already snapped up the land where Patterson’s bridge would’ve landed at Versailles. But don’t shed tears for Stanley…his bread is well buttered elsewhere – like in Parika!
Now back to the new DHB. With the Govt pushing right ahead, the Bridge construction should generate quite a few hundred jobs. Your Eyewitness believes these should be reserved for those poor GuySuCo workers from Wales, who were cruelly fired by the PNC. There will be more than enough need for unskilled labour to keep them busy. With these modern bridges, much of the components are pre-welded in a “Fabrication Yard” and taken to the site for assembly.
The Govt shouldn’t be waiting for the Bridge to be going up before they look for welders; Guyana just doesn’t have enough of them with the necessary competency. They should be recruiting the teenage children of the Wales workers who want to go into the “technical” field, and start training them. Over in Berbice, the Bridge across the Corentyne River should also be the catalyst for training welders and other skilled workers there. Make sure the Surinamese don’t get all the gravy.
Your Eyewitness reminds one and all that “moutar different from guitar”. PPP are the real deal when it comes to building bridges – literally and figuratively!!
…and flipping land
In the real estate business (buying and selling land and property), there’s the notion of “flipping”. No, it’s not a swear word, as in “the flippin’ house”!! It’s when someone buys the property with no intention of using it or living there, but merely to resell it ASAP for a hefty profit; so, the old business maxim of “buy low and sell high” really applies in this tactic.
Well, now that the PNC have been thrown out of office at the polls, the Guyanese people are beginning to understand why they failed so miserably to deliver on their promise to develop the country. THEY WERE ALL TOO BUSY DEVELOPING THEIR BANK ACCOUNTS!! We just discovered that one PNC Executive who became famous for carrying around the handbag of a once powerful top doe (who only had “PNC friends”!) made hundreds of millions by flipping lands at Peters Hall to some Chinese companies.
In his case, the PNC Exec didn’t just buy low and sell high…HE DIDN’T EVEN BUY!!
He “got” for free!
…across rising seas
Your Eyewitness worries that all of our best laid plans with the focus on infrastructure on our coastlands will soon go awry. The sea, after all, is inexorably rising, and we are below sea level, to begin with
