The finishing touches are being added to the road leading to the Takutu Bridge on the Guyana side, signalling the completion of the mega-project that links Guyana and Brazil by road.
Brazilian army personnel, who have been working on the road, are expected to wrap up work this week. They have paved 1.6km of the road leading to the bridge on the Guyana side and are adding the “very last touches”, Chairman of Region Nine (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo) Clarindo Lucas told Stabroek News yesterday.
He said that once completed it is up to President Bharrat Jagdeo and the President of Brazil, Lula Da Silva to decide on a date for the commissioning.
Lucas told this newspaper that other aspects such as the bridge itself and the access road on the Brazil side have already been completed.
The bridge has been long in the making and at one point construction was halted as Brazilian authorities probed financial irregularities.
The pace and efficiency with which the Brazilian army has worked on this massive project is amazing. One only hopes that our government considers Brazilian contractors when undertaking major road works.
Alas, while everything around the Takutu Bridge has a gleaming new look, Lethem continues to look like a old dusty frontier. The roads are terrible, electricity continues to be inefficient, potable water supply is also unreliable. Our multi purpose complex is still not yet complete. Our touted modern hospital ceased construction over a year ago and no one seems to know when/if this facility will be completed.
Compare this to all of the infrastructural works that are ongoing in Bon Fim (our neighbouring town)- paved roads, playparks and modern housing schemes, football stadium, state of the art customs complex etc.
Who do you think will be more prepared to benefit from the opening of the bridge???
Don’t be surprised if Lethem residence start migrating to Bon Fim, I prefer my old dusty Lethem with all utilities paved roads anyday to Bon Fim. I do not know when it will materialised but I will continue travel from NY to Lethem to enjoy the Rupununi and it’s friendly people.
Good things comes to those who wait, the Brazilians waited from 1500 until 2009 and Guyanese 1966 until 2009, have to -28 years backward by the pnc govt. Were still ahead noting the dates of independence.
Arnold remember, it’s the Brazilians who have built the bridge, not Jagdeo and his cronies. Let’s see if 28 years from now you will still be praising the PPP.
To date everything is just hipe from the Government nothing solid. 16 years and they have nothing to show.
The way Lethem is descibed and compared to Bon Fim by many is an ideal place for foreign/visiting tourists. They like the roughness, dusty and raw/natural environment – different from where they are used to – ’state of the art’. What is more STATE OF THE ART than the natural beauty of Lethem/Rupununi/interior of Guyana as a whole?
WELCOME TO LETHEM everyone!!! LET-THEM come!!
Basic infrastructure will not deter from the beauty of the Rupununi. It’s too unique.
But infrastructure is needed for development.
Should tourists always see us as ‘undeveloped’?
keep lethem the way it is and not modernized. it will add to our eco-tourism.
INFRASTRUCTURE -Basic Oragnization – the system according to which a company, organization, or other body is organized at the most basic level.
Most hotellers at Lethem are organized at the most basic level – they have generators, they have private wells, their transportation and with Bed & Breakfast – most tourists take that kind of package.
This is not to say that there shouldn’t be any development at Lethem (Gov’t wise) – hey – if the people of Lethem were to wait on any development on any government – it would never happen in a hurry.
Millions of dollars were spent on the Moco-Moco Hydro – about 6 years ago it went down – if the gov’t wanted Lethem to be developed, Preso would have immediately call back the Chinese to set it up again.
May be the project wasn’t registered after all!!