A spanking new farm-to-market road was commissioned on Friday by President Irfaan Ali at No.58 Village, Corentyne, Berbice, allowing farmers to access thousands of acres of farmlands.
The new asphaltic road with geo-cell technology stretched some 6.4 kilometers.
“All of us together will benefit from this infrastructure, all of us together will be uplifted from this infrastructure,” President Ali said, noting that his government is “wide awake” when it comes to strategies for future development.
According to Ali, there is a laser focus on enhancing productive capacity and making the right investments that will ultimately broaden the economic base, create job opportunities, provide a medium for new investments and also “support the expansion of our economy and the growth and development of our people.”
The President, while addressing the dozens of residents who converged on the new road, said that the engineering arm of the government is faced with a lot of pressure from him despite the shortage of materials worldwide.
“What we are doing here is defying the odds in many instances,” the Head of State lamented, adding that there is a lot of “behind the scene” work to ensure the proper management of supply chains for projects that have to be executed countrywide.
According to Ali, the farm-to-market road project is part of a “large infrastructure plan which will lead all the way to the Canje Creek and in totality will open up over 50,000 acres of land for production.”
Meanwhile, Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill revealed that $1.18 billion will be spent in total to complete this road.
There will be two concrete bridges to cross over the main canal at the end of the road; contracts totalling $169, 701, 650 were already awarded for this aspect.
Once that is completed, there will be Phase Two of the project where the road will continue all the way down to Canje Creek.
