The entire hydro project should be sent back to the drawing board

Aug 04, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
House Speaker, Mr. Ralph Ramkarran, is on record stating that corruption is one of three areas he wants to tackle if he becomes President, and hopefully, based on Kaieteur News’ latest mind-boggling expose, “Guyana was to have hydro power from today,” (August 1), there is at least one parliamentary opposition member who will seek the House Speaker’s help to table a motion to hold parliamentary hearings on what is now considered a blatant attempt by the Jagdeo regime to deceive the Guyanese people on the Fip Motilall contract to build a road to Amaila Falls.
In March this year, the Jagdeo regime announced that Mr. Motilall’s company, Synergy Holdings Inc., had submitted the lowest bid (US$15.4M) for the construction of the road to Amaila Falls. Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon subsequently described critics of the deal as having a ‘sinister motive’ and that the contract was handled ‘within the provisions of the Procurement Act’.
But if the copy of the MOU that Kaieteur News obtained and published showing the caption ‘Guyana Government’ at the top and signatures of Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, the then Chairman of the GPL, Joseph Alli, and Mr. Motilall at the bottom, dated May 23, 2006, for the construction of the hydro project (and not just the road leading to the project) is real, it means Mr. Motilall’s lowest bid claim should be subjected to legal dispute/challenge.
It had to be pure arrogance that the government set out to deliberately deceive the entire nation in March this year, knowing that it had a 2006 MOU with Mr. Motilall thus making Mr. Motilall the frontrunner in any deal related to this project. And it had to be sheer convenience that PM Hinds did not remember signing off on such an important MOU related to the construction of Guyana’s first hydro project. But both demand clarification in a publicly-aired debate in Parliament because right now Guyanese are going to be on the hook for a US$500M loan negotiated between the Guyana Government and a bank in China for financing of a project that was struck under rather murky circumstances.
And even though Mr. Motilall’s Synergy, which never built a road or a hydro project before, is no longer going to build the project, we reserve the right to know who recommended Sithe Global to the Guyana Government. Beside what has already been written about Sithe Global, viz a viz, the budget-busting Bujagali Hydro Project in Uganda, Sithe Global built another electricity plant – Goreway Station – in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, and with Guyanese living and working in Brampton, it would be of great interest to the Guyanese people if Sithe Global was recommended by any Canadian-based Guyanese who might be working at that Brampton power station.
Moreover, it will be of great interest to Guyanese to know if Mr. Motilall’s
Synergy will still be responsible for constructing the road to the project, now that the Chinese, who are financing the project, are said to be providing labour for it. So far, we learned Mr. Motilall won the road contract, then we learned that he was advanced US$1.6M, and after waiting weeks, we definitely know that no equipment will be arriving from overseas, yet the government, as usual, treats this entire affair as a ‘state secret’.
While mum is the word of the hour, it will be an harder slap in our collective face if the government pushes ahead with this project without even reviewing what clearly is a plot craftily hatched in a web of deceit.
But we are also to blame for not paying attention to what our government was doing all along. In fact, there is something of a symbiotic relationship between the Synergy deal and that of the Queens Atlantic II deal, even though the two are not mutually beneficial to each other: Both lacked initial MoUs but had handshake agreements. In March 2008, exactly two years before the Synergy road construction contract, the government and QAII signed an MoU pertaining to the once government-owned New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (NGPC) and Sanata Complex, but prior to this, there were already agreements in the works between government and QAII in which government was a client of QAII.
And much like the Synergy deal that was facilitated by the NICIL, whose head is Mr. Winston Brassington, the QAII deal was facilitated by the Privatization Unit, also headed by Mr. Brassington, and both the NICIL and PU are government-run.
There are some serious questions about monies received by the Privatization Unit for sold state properties that may be at the disposal of the NICIL, but more on that in another letter. Right now, the focus is on the fact that even before the government-QAII March 2008 MoU, one of the group’s companies, the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation, was receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for medical and pharmaceutical supplies to the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Hospital Corporation, so what the March 2008 MoU basically did was to put a legal covering on what were already operational agreements involving supplies and payments. Ironically, two of QAII’s health companies have been recently named by the Health Minister as being among four companies that will be bidding for pharmaceutical and medical supply contracts.
If it gets any more interesting than this, Editor, we have to call in script writers from Hollywood and Bollywood, because what we are witnessing can only be scripted by an overly imaginative or creative mind. It is almost surreal just trying to decipher the kind of thinking that is going into all of this bizarre type of governance.
If only the government could have utilized that kind of weird creativity in a positive way for all Guyanese and not just a chosen few, it might well be commendable and emulative, but this latest ‘skin-up’ by Kaieteur News that showed government signing off on an MoU with Synergy Holdings Inc. in 2006, demands the entire project be shelved as is and sent back to the drawing board.
Emile Mervin

If the AFC is not a race based party then neither is the PNC or PPP

Dear Editor,
It is interesting when it comes to the AFC how Emile Mervin can put away his thinking and memory cap and is not unperturbed telling a couple of white lies. I refer to his letter in KN July 29, “The AFC is the antithesis of the race-pandering PPP and PNC”
Emile said “Messrs. Raphael Trotman and Khemraj Ramjattan – parted ways with their previous parties, the PNC and PPP, respectively” based on “principles.” As people remember it Raphael Trotman was part of the PNC Gang of 8 demanding Desmond Hoyte step down as leader of the party in order for them to take over and he felt he was better than the other leaders. Khemraj Ramjattan had personal grievances with Bharrat Jagdeo and frequent run-ins with the PPP executives.
Both men were sent to parliament as MPs based on the seats the PNC and PPP won in the National Assembly. It was during this time they decided that they were going to form the AFC and refused to give up the PNC and PPP seats so that another party member could rightfully occupied it. They stayed in parliament and received salary and duty free concessions for their vehicles as MPs for the PNC and PPP even as they no longer served those parties’ voters and they formed the AFC.
Sheila Holder, a WPA MP was also part of this Machiavellian scheme. If these are the “principles” Emile finds pleasure boasting about then the country is worse off than people think.
Emile said the PNC and PPP are race based parties and the AFC is not into “ethnic-pandering” and “race baiting.” The AFC five seats in parliament were achieved from pulling votes from the PNC’s stronghold. Simply put the AFC got it votes from the African community. The irrefutable facts are there, Emile.
If the AFC is not a race based party then neither is the PNC or PPP. He also said “I dare the PNC to show Blacks what tangibles it dragged out of the PPP from 1992 to now.”  The AFC also needs to show Blacks what tangibles it dragged out of the PPP from 2006 to now. Remember it is this group that gave the AFC its five seats.  Mervin also expressed concerns that the PNC and PPP have done nothing for racial unity. Neither has the AFC.
AFC members are saying the party will not form alliances with either the PNC or PPP. No one is fooled. Alliance was not a talk of the PPP it was a talk of the opposition, Emile. But that is all well and good, a party has a right to change its mind but it is not much to expect it to be honest. Don’t forget it is the AFC who says it is changing the way politics work. Members are also saying that if they do not win in 2011 they will win in 2016 and their aim right now is to replace the main opposition. People wanted the opposition to win not compete against each other. Do you men get it?
Emile Mervin does not live in Guyana and is far removed from the daily hassles, deprivation and discrimination. He does not care about us other than the occasional show of face and letters. I have had it up to my head with politicians’ deceit and chicanery.
I am a young Guyanese who will be voting for the first time next year. I have a bachelors’ degree in computer science and for the past two and a half years I have been doing odd jobs, cannot pay my bills and living with my parents.
There is real hardship for many of us who want to stay and develop our country. This is why I find it most ridiculous and selfish to be reading about these hairy fairy beliefs and lies of the AFC principals when their foremost belief should be to put aside their interests and serve us who need a chance under a new government.
Shawn Moriah

Jonathan Foo was a breath of fresh air

Dear Editor,
Congratulations to the Guyana and Jonathan Foo for winning the 2010 West Indies T20 tournament. Not withstanding his memorable performance with the bat, Jonathan Foo, the individual, was a welcome breath of fresh air. Since Guyana attained independence in 1966, players of Black and East Indian ethnicity have dominated our cricket. It was truly refreshing to see the hero of the victory was of Chinese descent.
Guyana remains a land of ethnic diversity. Everyone, regardless of colour class or creed, has an equal opportunity to excel. Young Jonathon obviously grasped his opportunity and won the final in style. Most appropriate, was the DJ blasting of Carl Douglas’s hit from 1974: Kung Fu Fighting. It was not racial; rather, it was simply celebrating a wonderful moment of diversity.
Once again, congratulation to Jonathan Foo and the Guyana team and best wishes in the Champions League.
Professor Vijay P Kumar, St. Johns University, NY

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