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Brian Tiwarie says Minister Benn getting personal
– Shipping of stone will increase when orders are made
“Robeson Benn is a director on Rahman’s quarry, Rahaman has two quarries and he is only working one. But he gave him two licence; we have the capacity in any area; we don’t say it, we do it. Anybody who brings a cheque or money for stone and they don’t get it can bring the press and then everyone will know.”
These sentiments were made by Managing Director of BK International, Brian Tiwarie, as he carried media operatives on a tour of the stone quarry in Essequibo, yesterday.
Insinuating that Minister Benn’s attack on him seems personal, Tiwarie said, “Robeson Benn would never allow me to walk an excavator on the public road, but he would allow someone else to walk with a bulldozer or an excavator on the Supenaam Stelling just to damage it.”
Underscoring that Government claims to have done a survey that shows there is a shortage, Tiwarie said that these document and claims have not been sent to quarries. “We don’t know what’s the government demand; they have not shared any documents but we are saying if that is the case we can step up production.”
He explained that over $50M in credit was given out to contractors and “when they take credit from you they buy cash from Toolsie. When they taking credit from Toolsie they go buy from another quarry, because they keep climbing their overdraft all the time.”
As such, a hold has been put on issuing credit for stone, with a requirement for payment being made on delivery of materials.
Tiwarie said that if Government decides to import stone, and the local market is soft, he has an export order of 50,000 tonnes for Trinidad that was requested by a Brazilian company and he will begin to export immediate if necessary.
He noted that as soon as the government ship comes in with stones his will be going out.
Omar Persaud who is a Geologist attached to B.K International, said that if demand is created the quarry can increase production at anytime. “It is not business smart or economical to subject the machines and personnel to triple production and produce a stockpile which cannot be sold.”
He added that if there is an increase, the machines are ready to produce a variety of stone, however, there are no requests at the company with any orders relating to stone supply.
“We made applications to the GGMC to expand our quarry license, and our intention is to put in place smaller mobile machines and other permanent large plots and to expand our foreign productions,” Persaud said.
Manager of the Quarry, Dayanjae Persaud said per day a minimum of 280 tonnes of aggregates are produced per hour and it is broken down into various sizes.
He said materials are stocked piled. “The company has the capacity to produce to meet demand since the quarry has more barges and ships to shuttle materials on a large scale.”
“We cannot stockpile it because we have the difficulty with overloading the wharf. So if the movement of the material increases at the Kingston headquarters, then the shipping will also increase.”
According to Ms Gail Tiwarie, Sales and Marketing Director of BK Quarries Inc, for the past week there has been no outstanding order and the company can supply any volume on demand.
“We ask that the Public Works Ministry to supply us with forecast and projection with what the demand is for a quarter so that production can be tailored towards the quota in order to supply demand.”
“We have local and foreign contractors that we supply and our quality has been tested by the Guyana National Bureau of Standards.”
“The Minister cannot be talking about B.K Quarries when he said that he didn’t see a stockpile. Our company is very active with production and distribution.”
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