Guyana's govt seeks to complete construction of Haags Bosch landfill

The Guyanese government is seeking to expedite construction of the Haags Bosch sanitary landfill in East Bank Demerara region, serving capital Georgetown, state news agency GINA reported. Construction of the project began in February 2007, and is scheduled to be completed in August next year, but its construction has seen some delays, which were addressed during a meeting with the project's stakeholders. Guyana's minister of local government and regional development Norman Whittaker said the meeting took place for stakeholders to "offer opinions, recommendations, observations with a view to advance the work that still needs to be done and bringing conclusion to those work within the timeline." Total cost of the facility is some G$4bn (US$19.6mn), and is partly being financed via an US$18mn IDB loan, while the remaining G$800mn was allocated by the government. During the meeting, the IDB representative expressed concern that only half of the resources obtained via the loan have been disbursed. "The unused resources have costs, an opportunity cost in terms of social programs that require resources that the bank is unable to fund and as well as financial costs as the loan resources have [an] interest rate," IDB's Leslie Ann Edward was quoted as saying. Haags Bosch is Guyana's only sanitary landfill, and replaced the Le Repentir dump.