Latest update February 6th, 2025 7:27 AM
One year later… New govt. still to see Amaila, Specialty Hospital contracts
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon
Opposition leader, Bharrat Jagdeo
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon has indicated that the APNU+AFC government is still looking for several contracts that were signed by the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic government. In fact, he pointed out two contracts that the government is still trying to locate. These are the contracts for the Amaila Falls Hydro Electricity Project and the Specialty Hospital.
This was revealed at yesterday’s post Cabinet press briefing.
Harmon was responding to former President Bharrat Jagdeo’s claims that there is nothing stopping the new government from making public the several controversial contracts that were signed during the reign of the PPP/C administration.
Yesterday Harmon stuck to his original statements to the effect that confidentiality clauses contained in most contracts are preventing the government from making them public.
Harmon said that Jagdeo’s utterance prove that he often times fail to think before speaking.
“I said what I said… I do not know if he (Jagdeo) has been in opposition for too long already, but certainly he is behaving in a manner as if he doesn’t remember things,” said Harmon.
The Minister continued, “But I can say this to Mr. Jagdeo, there are some contracts that have so much confidentiality about them that are so deeply buried, we cannot see them up to now.” In this regard, he pointed to the contracts for the Specialty Hospital and the Amaila Project.
Harmon said that he spoke to Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, up to yesterday morning, and that Minister confirmed that he is yet to see the contracts. Harmon said that these are two projects that the government spent millions on. But the contracts remain “deeply buried”
“The Amaila Falls contract, we’ve never seen it. In fact while we were in the opposition we were invited to these offices to meetings, and were told by the then government that these were confidential arrangements, and we are basically briefing you on some of them. But where is the contract, where is it?”
Minister Harmon said that the coalition government does not have anything to hide, and has so far been quite transparent in all its contractual arrangements.
“The President said that we are prepared to let these go public, and every week I report on what cabinet has done and what contract has been signed… So there is nothing secret about this administration,” said Harmon.
He recalled an incident where members of the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) had to visit the home of “a former high operative from the PPP and they had thousands of pages of documents flying out of the back of a pickup.”
Harmon said that maybe was the reason why some of the contracts cannot be located.
Harmon stated emphatically, “I dare Jagdeo to say otherwise. I do not want to get into a public battle with the opposition leader. He has his job to do, but we have a country to run. He can’t run the country from Freedom House.”
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