PetroCaribe fund...PPP/C explanation about PetroCaribe funds ‘pathetic’ - Doerga

PetroCaribe fund…PPP/C explanation about PetroCaribe funds ‘pathetic’ – Doerga

Jun 14, 2015 News

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Clement Rohee, recently offered an explanation why the PetroCaribe fund is not there.

Dr. Turhane Doerga, GRPA

But rice industry experts have come out in strong condemnation of Rohee’s explanation. They now say that only two months ago the PPP/C had offered a completely different explanation of how the PetroCaribe funds were used.
On Thursday, Minister of State Joseph Harmon made the shocking revelation that the PetroCaribe fund was bankrupt.
His announcement caused the PPP/C to fire back by accusing the current administration of “managing to empty the PetroCaribe fund”.
The PPP/C had also declared that the funds were used for projects such as the new Guyana Power and Light (GPL) power plants in Kingston and Vreed-En-Hoop and the Hope Canal.
Chairman of the Rice Producers’ Action Committee Dr. Turhane Doerga labeled Rohee’s efforts to explain away the missing funds as “pathetic”.
He said that former President and central committee executive of the PPP/C Bharrat Jagdeo clearly stated that only US$15M was used from the PetroCaribe fund by the previous administration and that this money was used in the construction of the Hope canal.
According to Doerga, Rohee’s declaration is clearly contrary to what Jagdeo declared on the campaign trail,

PPP/C General Secretary, Clement Rohee

in an effort to assuage farmers of the existence of the money to pay them.
Payment is in keeping with the PetroCaribe agreement, which stipulates that Guyana imports oil from Venezuela at a reduced cost, in exchange for the provision of rice to Venezuela.
This arrangement has led to Venezuela becoming Guyana’s single largest foreign market for rice. For 2015, it was in fact expected that Venezuela would account for 30 per cent of rice exports.
On Friday the PPP/C, in a statement issued in response to Harmon’s declaration had said, “The Fund was managed optimally and transparently by the PPP/C government and within one month the APNU+AFC government has displayed its incompetence in being unable to manage the fund’s operations properly, resulting in hardship to the rice farmers and millers.”
The PPP/C on Friday also declared that “absolutely no money was missing from the PetroCaribe fund and even if the fund has a limited balance that does not mean in any way that money is missing.”
The party had also asserted that detailed records reflecting the inflow and outflow from the fund could be had and would furthermore withstand scrutiny.
But the PPP/C’s latest statements that the monies fund projects included in the national budget and submitted to parliament for approval are startling and fly in the face of what the PPP/C had been saying along the campaign trail.
Doerga also went on to remind the current administration of their responsibilities to the rice industry in order to find alternate markets. According to him, contrary to what the PPP/C would have taken credit for, many markets were brokered as a result of private rice producers.