Govt. not ‘hogtied’ to Amaila Falls hydro contract-AFC

Jan 26, 2012 News

…party calls for Luncheon’s resignation

The Alliance For Change (AFC) says that the Government is not ‘hogtied’ to contracts signed by

Khemraj Ramjattan

President Bharrat Jagdeo, especially the Amaila Falls project. This was a view offered by Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon.
AFC’s Chairman, Khemraj Ramjattan, at a press conference yesterday at the Side Walk Café also called for Dr Luncheon to resign his post as Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Presidential Secretariat.
According to Ramjattan, Dr. Luncheon had to be fully aware of the deals former President Bharrat Jagdeo entered into.
“Dr Luncheon had a duty to this nation to oppose such contracts and make known his opposition then. He must remember that first and foremost he is a public servant and answerable to the people.”
Ramjattan noted, “Now that Mr. Jagdeo is no longer in charge, Dr. Luncheon is seeking to remove himself from blame. Instead of demanding a review of these contracts, he now wants the poor, overtaxed Guyanese people to bear the financial burden so that Mr. Jagdeo and the few associated with those contracts can realise the kickbacks those projects were intended to provide.”
He explained that instead of Dr Luncheon demanding an investigation to see whether there were fraudulent intents in signing these contracts and bringing those responsible, he seeks to mislead the nation into believing that the contracts must be honoured, at all costs, by the taxpayers.
The AFC official noted that Dr Luncheon was at pains to state, erroneously, that the Trinidad Government had to pay tremendous penalties when it cancelled contracts entered into by the previous administration but omitted the fact that all such contracts found to be against the interest of the Trinidadian people were cancelled without penalty.
“He even omitted to state that the Contractors General in Jamaica recently demanded of the new Government in that country that a highway contract with a Chinese construction company, the very one with which Mr Jagdeo signed our airport expansion project, be cancelled and international bidding invited.”
“Dr Luncheon is clearly attempting to deceive the Guyanese people into trying to convince the new administration into carrying out fraudulent contracts against the best interest of our taxpayers. It appears that he is conspiring with Mr. Jagdeo to deceive and bully this nation.”
The AFC’s Chairman further contended that it is the same Dr. Luncheon who as Chairman of the NIS Board released US$30M of taxpayers’ money to CLICO.
Underscoring that the contracts were not subject to any feasibility study, no competitive tendering, non-disclosure to Parliament, and only reflected the former President’s “recklessness with taxpayers’ moneys”, Ramjattan said such “conflict of interest” and “corruption” must come to an end and Jagdeo must be subjected to an integrity investigation and brought to justice.
“President (Donald) Ramotar must disassociate himself from the party’s ‘diehard’ and deal with corruption frontally; as his first duty is to the people of this country. He would be advised, as a start, to have new integrity legislation, an independent integrity commission, cancelling all such secret contracts, and very importantly, the replacement of Ministers of Government accused of corruption pending an integrity investigation.”
Government is planning to build a 165MW hydro power facility in Guyana for over US$800M.

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