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RUSAL and Kwakwani residents in standoff over removal of equipment
Concerned residents of Kwakwani called in the police to halt the removal, by a Russian mining company, of equipment that previously served the bauxite mining community.
Some of the control panels from the crushing plant that were being removed.
The residents are claiming that the equipment is the property of the state and should remain in the community for future use, while the bauxite company, RUSAL, is reportedly insisting that it owns the equipment as per agreement when it took over the bauxite operations at Kwakwani.
Kaieteur News understands that over the past three months, RUSAL has been scaling down its Kwakwani operations and moving to another location some eight miles away. In the process it has been removing equipment that was used in its Kwakwani operations.
However, residents are adamant that the company has unlawfully removed some assets that belong to the state which are administered through the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
According to Charles Thom, a prominent resident of Kwakwani, the company has removed 12 fuel tanks – each with a capacity of eight to ten thousand gallons – caterpillar trucks and other vital spare parts from the machine shop and workshop.
“Yesterday (Wednesday) they were at the crushing plant and we had to call in the police,” Thom told this newspaper via telephone yesterday.
“They came and meet a working plant and now they made it inoperable,” Thom added.
He said that yesterday, workers from the Russian company were attempting to take out the plant’s control panels.
According to Thom, who was recently elected to the community’s Neighbourhood Democratic Council at the just concluded local government elections, the RUSAL workers had already cut the cables to the panels and were in the process of removing them when the police were called in.
“We reported it and the police came and stop them,” Thom stated.
He told this newspaper that the community is in discussions with an overseas group to invest in the community and a working crushing plant is integral to their plans.
These plans include the loading of sand and quarry, which Thom said would provide much needed jobs for the residents of Kwakwani who have been denied this for a while now.
“The Russians came here and met a working crushing plant and now that they are leaving, they have to leave a working plant. We are searching for other investors, so if they take it away we have nothing to entice other investors,” Thom said.
This newspaper tried yesterday to contact RUSAL officials but was unsuccessful.
The relationship between RUSAL and the residents of Kwakwani had become acrimonious over the years, with workers even calling for the intervention of the government on a number of occasions.
“They already rape the community. They have no respect, not even for the past or present government,” Thom stated.
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