Chinese company awarded contract to construct new Harbour Bridge

Guyana is close to building a new four-lane, high-span fixed bridge across the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) after a Chinese Company – China State Construction Engineering Corporation Ltd. – was given the nod of approval from Cabinet to construct the new structure.

The Ministry of Finance in a press statement late Monday night outlined that the company proposed that it can construct the new DHB at a cost of US$256.6 million based on the Design-Build-Finance (DBF) model outlined by the government.

That price was found to be the lowest amongst all bidders, the Finance Ministry said in its release.  It is intended that the bridge will land at Nandy Park on the East Bank of Demerara and Meer Zorgen/La Grange on the West Bank of Demerara.

The new structure serves as a critical component of the government’s drive to expand and modernize Guyana’s transport infrastructure.

It will replace the more than 45-year-old DHB with a modern four-lane structure that will facilitate greater traffic capacity and dramatically improve commuter convenience.

It is anticipated that the new bridge will offer easy connectivity to both the existing East Bank Demerara road as well as the new Diamond to Ogle bypass on the eastern side of the River and to the existing West Bank Demerara Road and the new Parika to Schoonord Road on the western side of the River.

And further, the new bridge will also offer critical connectivity to the new Wales Development Authority which will be a major centre of productive activity when it comes on stream.

The Public Works Ministry had initially pre-qualified nine (9) firms to submit bids for the construction of the two-lane dual carriageway (4 lanes) hybrid Cable-Stayed center span bridge with Concrete Box/T Beam Girder approach bridge structure with the following inclusions: Bridge collision protection; Navigation span to accommodate Handymax vessel Navigation aids; Lighting, signage, and all other ancillary works; Access road with a minimum of 50 meters up to abutments and Toll collection buildings and ancillary buildings on the West Bank of the Demerara River.

Those were Ballast Nedam Infrastructure Suriname BV, Odebrecht Engenharia e Construcao SA, Boskalis Guyana, Effiage Genie Civil Company Ltd (Netherlands), Rizzani de Eccher Construction (Italy), China State Construction Engineering Corp, China Gezhouba Group Company Limited, JV China Railway International Group, China Road and Bridge Company, and  China Railway Construction Corporation Ltd.

The pre-qualified firms were invited to submit bids to construct the bridge using a Design-Build-Finance (D-B-F) contract and Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain (D-B-F-O-M) contract and were given a deadline of October 5, 2021.

But only five submitted bids, of which four (4) obtained the required minimum score for the technical proposal.