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Keith Burrowes had to be affiliated to the PPP

Jun 03, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
Recent public statements to the media by Keith Burrowes: “I am not politically aligned; Governments over the years thought that I was competent for the job and I have succeeded always.”
Mr. Burrowes was appointed Advisor to President Ramotar in 2012, his service was pro bono voluntary and he remained in that post. He was Chairman of Guyana Chronicle, director at Guysuco and headed the tender committee. These appointments will never be given to someone who is not politically aligned to the PPP.
Now if you consider these appointments and the performance of the Chronicle, Go Invest and Guysuco your readers must decide if Burrowes is not politically aligned and competent.
My reason for this public outburst is that it seems as witch hunting is being synonymous with masking justice to the oppressed and wronged, defending incompetence, condoning corruption and allow the Wizards or Witches to find new brooms to fly on in the new administration.
In 2012 Burrowes was the chairman of the Guysuco Tender Board, he subverted the tendering process on instructions from then Minister Robert Persaud to not award a contract legitimately evaluated in ECI favour.
The contract was awarded to a supplier who did not bid or meet the tender requirements. This contract was more than one year late with no penalty to the supplier while the cane harvest suffered.
Having worked 23 years with contracts for Guysuco, it was one of the few tender processes in the PPP administration that was not corrupted. This came to an end with Robert Persaud as Minister and Burrowes as chairman of the tender board.
In 2013 we were requested to attend a meeting with Burrowes by Guysuco.  For the first appointment he was a no show.
We met to discuss an engagement with Guysuco to build a critical component of the Skekdon 2 factory Punt Dumper in order to start the next grinding for sugar production. Burrowes’s involvement was the authority as Chairman of Guysuco Tender Board to negotiate and award the contract. This was necessary since the contractor that Guysuco selected in the previous tender process was unable to do the project.
The project was completed and worked successfully, Guysuco accepted. We were informed that all payments in this project were suspended, then our bank informed us that Guysuco was demanding the 10% performance bond. We successfully obtain injunctions, against the bank preventing it from paying the bond and against Guysuco from using the equipment the sugar corporation acquired by false pretence.
Guysuco settled by requesting the litigation suspension and made full payment to us.
About that time I had a letter published in the press about Alexie Ramotar and the massive failure of the E-Governance and the Fibre Optics project; mind you this was in 2013. Keith Burrowes was advisor to The President.
I was reliably informed that instructions from Guysuco Chairman, Raj Singh, was given to the board of Guysuco Tender Committee Chairman and board member, Burrowes, and management on the non-payment and calling the performance bond. The reason was victimization for writing the letter about the failed Fiber Optics project and Alexie Ramotar, the president’s son.
I want to suspect that Burrowes was selected to go to Go Invest in collusion given Minister Robert Persaud plans for Burrowes to turn a blind eye on projects that are required to be handled by this agency.
This is my reason to witch-hunt Keith Burrowes. He is a very public person with the unlimited access to the Chronicle. This administration must decide whether he could have done all this without an alliance to the PPP administration.
Samuel Barakat,
CEO

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