Latest update January 8th, 2025 4:30 AM
May 31, 2011 Letters
Dear Editor,
I refer to the article titled: “More woes hit Amaila Falls Roadway Project” (Kaieteur News, May 30), which reports on the unlikelihood of the project being completed as per contract deadline. One sentence from the article says: “Dr Luncheon had said that Motilall should be very worried because the design of the contract stipulates stringent penalties”.
How would the govt. enforce “stringent penalties” against Mr. Motilall or his company? The bond required upon the signing of the road contract was not put up by Motilall or his company, but by Hand-in-Hand insurance company at the behest of President Jagdeo.
This fact is public knowledge. It was reported in all the news media. For a senior official of the government to now say that the govt. has recourse for the failure to complete the road as per contract stipulations is rank hypocrisy.
Mr. Motilall can walk away from the project and the govt. will not be able to seek redress or compensation from Mr. Motilall’s company for failure to fulfill his end of the contract. Mr. Motilall’s company Synergy Solutions Inc. has no assets and no reputable office or address. The address of his company is a Sari and Pooja shop in the state of Florida.
Mr. Motilall himself had been unable to provide any credible evidence of his company having built any road since its registration.
For all intents and purposes his company is nothing but a shell company – until the Guyana Govt. awarded it a US$15.4 million to build the Amaila Falls road and granted it a “licence” to build a hydro power plant.
But the Guyanese nation of 700,000 should forget about the road project. A US$15.4 million road contract is small potatoes. Consider that the contract (you may use the legal term “licence”) to build the Hydro Power Plant valued at US$500 to US$650 million had also been awarded to Mr. Motilall, never mind that Mr. Motilall had never been involved anywhere in building roads or power plants.
At best, one columnist wrote, Mr. Motilall had provided services to the govt. consistent with that of a consultant – he should have been paid a salary and/or commission – or a “Finder’s fee” for finding a company called Sithe Global who will eventually build the Hydro power plant. But to award this man two separate contracts, one to build a road and another to build a power plant – is not just rank idiocy but a fraud that should be investigated.
In the United States the Congress and the media would have been ringing down this country calling for a special prosecutor to launch an investigation to figure how on earth a man who has absolutely no engineering credentials and no assets could have won two engineering contracts valued at Us$15.4 million and US$650 million.
What is to be made of PM Sam Hinds’ published letter in the Independent press claiming Mr. Motilall had been working on the hydro project since 1994 and had spent over US$10 million?
Has Mr. Hinds forgotten that Mr. Motilall was supposed to have won the road project in a sealed bid tender offer which can have no consideration of Mr. Motilall’s work since 1994, if any?
So now PM Hinds has raised suspicion in the public’s mind that the tender process had been rigged all along – and that the contract had been steered to Mr. Motilall.
Had Guyana been ruled as a state of the Union of the United States, PM Sam Hinds would certainly have had to disclose under oath all his dealings with Fip Motilall to a Special Prosecutor.
Now the news media are reporting that Mr. Motilall sold the licence to build the power plant to an outfit called Sithe Global. And, Sithe Global is again contracting out the job to another company named China Railway.
Why doesn’t the Jagdeo Govt. negotiate a contract directly with China Railway – and cut out two sets of middle men, Synergy Inc. and Sithe Global? And, if the government needs project management people to evaluate, monitor and supervise the work-in-progress, it can find them in the Ministry of Works and Hydraulics, or hire them from abroad.
But hiring Sithe Global to do project management work is to knowingly hiring a disreputable company. A spokesman for Sithe Global told a press conference (to paraphrase) he didn’t know how or when Sithe Global got the contract. “It just fell into our hands”, he said.
Is this transparent dealing? Is this supposed to be some kind of a scam? Did someone say, “If it looks like a scam, then it must be a scam?” The Guyanese people would do well to read up on Sithe Global – this company’s reputation is no different from Bernard Kerik’s who also won a million dollar contract from President Jagdeo to provide “project management” services for the Guyana Police Force. And, when President Jagdeo refused to rescind Kerik’s contract, Kerik cancelled it himself after he was arrested and charged for committing felonious crimes. Kerik is still in jail as of today.
The Kerik deal was a scam. And, so is the deal – “It just fell into our hands” – with Sithe Global whose spokesman could not reveal the details of how and when they were hired to do “project management”.
God help this nation of 700,000 people. Every day more and more scams are revealed. Guyana looks so much like Marcos’ Philippines.
Mike Persaud
New York
Jan 08, 2025
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