By JYOTI PRATIBHA
The Denarau Corporation Limited is working to finalise the details of the new Denarau bridge. This will replace the old bridge to the tourism complex island, which now has structural issues.
Corporation chief executive officer Rupeni Fonmanu said they were to hold meetings to decide the finer details of the new bridge, which had been deferred.
They are now meeting next Friday to decide the finer details, including how to recover the interest free loan of $8 million which Government has committed for the project.
Mr Fonmanu said while they have gone through the expressions of interests, they were now working around the clock to see how best the construction of the new bridge can commence.
Repair the old versus building a new
Mr Fonmanu said they had not ruled out the repair option of the bridge, however, once tests were completed, it was decided that a new bridge would be a more feasible option.
He said that the tests they had carried out in 2011 revealed that the steel sub structures of the existing Denarau bridge had started to corrode.
“Why did the bridge end up in its current state? A few factors, apart from the absence of any proper maintenance cycle. When we did the test of the bridge in 2011, we found that there had been high levels of chlorine penetration in the sub structure and that resulted in the steel structures to corrode.
“The sub structures are the only reinforcement that is holding the bridge together.”
While considering the options of repair, replacing the deck of the existing bridge was considered. However, that would have cost the Corporation $7 million .
And this would increase the life expectancy of the existing bridge by 15 years.
“It would be more feasible to build a new bridge at $9.5 million.
“Because we only tested two areas of the sub structure, the life expectancy of the repair options cannot be determined and we got the results for it but if we do more tests for a longer life expectancy, it would cost us more,” he said.
Mr Fonmanu said Government’s $8million interest free loan offer still stands, however, it comes with the condition that the loan need to be repaid at the earliest possible.
He said that for the repayment of the loan, imposing a toll on the bridge had been considered.
However, the details of how the toll would be imposed were yet to be decided.
“In terms of the recovery one of the Government requirement is that if they fund it, they need it to be repaid in the shortest possible time, since this does not fall into the projects that Government funds.
“Government’s condition is that they require the recovery of the funds but to ensure that the employees are not adversely affected in any way.”
He said given the condition Government had attached with the loan- of quick repayment and to ensure that the employees who work on the Island were not affected in any way- they were working around that model to see how imposing a toll would work.
Mr Fonmanu said they would be in a better position to release more information after their meeting next Friday.
An artist’s impression of the planned new Denarau Bridge.