Story and photographs by Johann Earle
Work on the Supenaam and Parika stellings is not yet completed despite an assurance by Transport Minister Robeson Benn that they would have been ready to accommodate the two recently-acquired Chinese ferries by the end of last month.
While some work has been done at Parika, with partly constructed ramps in place, there was no change at the Supenaam stelling from December last year to this week, visits to the two facilities on Tuesday by this newspaper found.
Prime Minister Sam Hinds on Wednesday confirmed what the site visits revealed the day before. “Yes the locations are not yet ready.
I think that this is a case where we have been learning quite a bit, trying to get it done very much on our own and it has taken a bit more time in learning how to get it right.
I think in another four weeks or so, the people working on it will get it right and the ferry service would be launched,” said Hinds in a brief comment to Stabroek News.
Engineer attached to the Ministry of Public Works Walter Willis confirmed that the work was still ongoing and told Stabroek News that there has to be a floating ramp built at Parika to accommodating the shifting tide and the differences in the water level.
He said that work is still to be completed on both of the stellings, but did not give a reason for the delays.
Asked when the works on the two stellings would be completed and when the ferries would be put into operation, Willis declined to comment further and directed questions to Minister Benn.
On April 16, during the budget debates in the National Assembly, Benn said emphatically that the ferries would have gone into operation in one week’s time. “Mr Speaker, we hope that shortly these vessels will come into operation. The Parika facility is completed. The Supenaam facility is soon to be completed and we welcome [the opposition] to join us on [these boats] from China,” he said. “I don’t want the members to be coming to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The vessels have already been cleaned, they have already been in dry dock for the little changes that had to be made on the vessels and they are waiting on the water to go to Parika and Supenaam within a week’s time,” Benn added.
The ferries arrived in Guyana last December. Marine engineers and other observers have expressed concern over the suitability of the new vessels and, in particular, their fuel consumption.
Officials of the government have not doubted that the fuel consumption of the two vessels will be significantly more than the present ferries that have been in use for about four decades.
The 2012 estimates have a provision of $500 million for the Transport and Harbours Department for this year, a 900 per cent increase over the $50 million allocated for year 2011 and observers believe that this has to do with the high maintenance cost projected for the operation of the two ferries.
