Wauna $18M carbon credit scandal

Aug 19, 2023 News

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…residents walk out of meeting with Regional Chairman

…more protests planned for Mabaruma

Kaieteur News – Residents of Wauna on Thursday night walked out of a meeting with Regional Chairman Brentnol Ashley after he and officials of the remote area’s Community Development Council (CDC) failed to provide them with any answers regarding the community’s $18M electrification project.

The project, which should have been completed earlier this year, would have seen the community receiving 24-hours electricity. However, the monies have reportedly been used up even as the project hangs in the balance. Residents are accusing the Chairman of the Community Development Council (CDC) Ammon Thom, its treasurer Ohad Layne and council member Mike Adams and others of mismanaging the sums allocated for the project and lying to them regarding its completion.

The monies are part of the Carbon Credit Fund which was allocated to Indigenous communities by the government to implement projects that would aid their development. The government sourced the funding from selling Guyana’s carbon credits.

Earlier this year, $18M was allocated to Wauna to aid its developmental projects. The Community Development Council (CDC) set aside $15M for the electrification project but on Tuesday, the Council was forced to meet to discuss the funds and the concerns raised by the residents who protested on Monday. To date, only $5M in Chinese-made wires has been procured for the project.

According to residents, the meeting at Wauna on Thursday afternoon was called by Ashley after this newspaper published an article on Wednesday in which the residents levelled corruption allegations against Thom and members of the council.

Confrontation

According to Wauna residents, the meeting did not last long since Ashley started the forum by defending Thom and others.

“As soon as the Regional Chairman started defending his friend Mr. Thom, the people started walking out,” a resident who attended the meeting told this publication.

The resident said that residents awaited an update on the project and how soon it would be completed. But when the residents sought answers from the Regional Chairman, he swayed the conversation, defending Thom and spoke at length about the former chair of the council, Kamla Armogan.

“But we wanted to know what the position is of this $18M project. We don’t care what happened when Kamla was chair. We heard nothing about the $18M. All the regional chairman said was that they bought the wire and that we should accept what they bought,” another resident added.

“The meeting was basically about the regional chairman picking up for his friend, Thom. And then the rest of the time was about accusing the previous chair of mismanagement,” the resident added.

According to a resident, Ashley, accompanied by a team of police officers, showed up at the meeting late, sometime after 17:30hrs on Thursday when the sun was setting in the distance. She said darkness had already taken over the venue at the Wauna Primary School when the meeting started.

During the meeting, Adams, a Councillor who the residents alleged bought $5M in substandard quality, Chinese-made wires for the project along with two other businessmen from Wauna, started pointing fingers at other residents who called him out for delivering the substandard wire and for spending the council’s money on personal use.

“Adams was telling another man about his wife, in full view of the regional chairman and the police and they did nothing about it,” an attendee said. Reports are that residents left the meeting with more questions than answers.

On Thursday, it was noted that a youth group, which falls under the Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO) group, the youth arm of the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C), was formed in Wauna some years ago and funds from that meeting have gone missing. Thom, who was the leader of the group, has failed to give an account of the group’s funds. Today, the youth group at Wauna has fallen apart while the funds remain missing.

The residents repeated their call for the government to replace Thom and other council members on the Wauna CDC. They also called on the police to investigate the mismanagement of the $18M Carbon Credit fund.

Personal attacks, more protests

Meanwhile, reports are that Armogan, former chair of the Wauna CDC, has been under attack from top government officials in Region One ever since the residents protested the situation in their community on Monday.

“The meeting on Thursday was about attacking the former chair Ms. Armogan, they even accused her of corruption but cannot give receipts to support their claim,” a resident noted.

Armogan has been campaigning for the government at elections over the years and she was recently elected as a representative of the PPP/C for Wauna at on the Mabaruma Town Council following Local Government Elections his year. On Thursday, she was asked to attend a meeting by Ashley at Mabaruma, the same day the meeting at Wauna was scheduled.

However, while the woman was engaged with other Council members at that meeting, Ashley and others hurried to Wauna to meet with residents of her constituency.

“They had her at Mabaruma waiting for the Town Council meeting to finish. They did not want her to be at Wauna because they went with a plan to level allegations about her at to the residents,” another Council member noted.

Armogan was reportedly asked to stay until the end of the meeting in Mabaruma and by the time she arrived at Wauna, Ashley’s meeting with residents had already splintered.

Wauna residents told this publication on Friday that they will robustly continue their protest on the Carbon Credit fund, and they issued a call on the government, mainly Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, to intervene in the matter.

“We cannot take the corruption with this CDC chair. He is always in some money scandal and the Regional Chairman is his friend and he keeps shielding him,” a disgusted resident told this publication.

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• Brentnol Ashley, Chairman, Community Development Council (CDC), Regional, Wauna

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