New Demerara Harbour Bridge: Gov’t willing to pay up to $150,000 in rent while property owners relocate 

The Government of Guyana could pay a rent of up to $150,000 for persons who need to relocate from the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) construction zone while their houses are being built, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill said Wednesday.

Edghill disclosed this in the National Assembly on Wednesday when he stood up to voice his approval of the amendments to the ‘Land Acquisition’ Bill.

Speaking at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, at Liliendaal, Edghill went into the details about the efforts by government to ensure that the persons whose properties must be removed to facilitate the new river crossing are adequately compensated.

Fifty-four properties were found to be in the alignment of the new DHB when the government did its survey. Edghill said, for transparency’s sake, a private valuator was also hired; one used by most of the commercial banks in the country. Both valuations, he said, were not too far apart.

Compensation was accepted most of those property owners. The offer of the Government includes land, house and monetary compensation. A small number of property owners were against the compensation packages and Edghill suggested that these individuals were swayed by some members of the political opposition.

Edghill said former Minister of Pubic Infrastructure David Patterson advised the persons to do yet another evaluation, persuading them that they could get even more money.

The government, he said, decided to take the matter to court with some of those persons ending up receiving less than what they government offered them.

In weaponising the issue, Edghill said this could have resulted in the stalling of works at the DHB.

“The people of Guyana must know the DHB would have been held up and could not be built because if the matter is weaponised…we have one court hearing to the next…the people would continue to suffer two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon because some political activist sees an opportunity of how they can stymie government development.”

He noted that while government is trying to bring about relief to people by building the DHB, they are not doing it at the expense of the property owners in question.

“We are not sacrificing or putting at a disadvantage the people who are facilitating that development, but we are ensuring that they get all that is required.”