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FM
Former Member
 

CJIA expansion…Chinese contractor blindsides local stone producers


…and Govt. can’t do anything about Surinamese stone importation – says Minister Gaskin

Due to the contractual terms of the agreement signed between the Government of Guyana and China

Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin

Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin

Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), the state cannot prevent the contracting company from importing 300,000 tonnes of crushed stone from Suriname for the Cheddi Jagan International Airport expansion.
This was relayed to the press by Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin yesterday during his party’s media conference. Gaskin also said that his government played no role in the procurement of the stones.
He said that the previous government had inked the contract with CHEC to do the expansion work. Gaskin believes that it is possible that the People’s Progressive Party Civic government did not foresee that CHEC would source the stone from a foreign entity.
According to the politician the contract does not contain any condition that specifies the source from which the stone should be procured. However, he said that the sourcing of sand had a limitation whereby it had to be procured within a certain radius of the airport.
“Under the terms of the contract I don’t think the government of Guyana can tell them (CHEC) that they can’t procure stones from outside of Guyana.”
Gaskin was reminded that it was the APNU-AFC government which had made some amendments to the contract. He was then asked why is it that greater consideration was not placed on ensuring that local businesses could have supplied all the stone.
Gaskin responded that he is unsure of what aspects of the contract were amended. However, he maintained that the essential conditions of the contract were signed before his party came into power and therefore should not be made to answer for what is currently happening.
He believes that this particular issue would not warrant the termination of the contract. Despite this, the Minister said that he strongly believes that local businesses should be engaged to benefit from public projects.

The barge Mariner’s 1 Kingston is being loaded in Paramaribo on Tuesday for the first shipment of crushed stone for the CJIA expansion project.

The barge Mariner’s 1 Kingston is being loaded in Paramaribo on Tuesday for the first shipment of crushed stone for the CJIA expansion project.

CHEC is securing the stones from Surinamese state-owned company Grassalco at the cost of US$7.5M. Grassalco and Zhong Da International Engineering Company will partner to deliver the material.
Local stone supplier, Toolsie Persaud Quarries had complained about the procurement of the stones from a foreign company. Chief Executive Officer of the company, Rajesh Persaud informed this publication that his company has in stock 90,000 tonnes presently.
He said that in Guyana there is two times the amount of stone needed for the expansion of the airport. According to Persaud his company and its employees depend on contracts like the airport expansion to keep operations going.
Persaud reported that the stone produced in Guyana is of a higher engineering specification than any other territory in the region.
Gaskin said that there has been no examination to ascertain what was responsible for a foreign company being chosen to supply the stones. “That would certainly help us to understand what some of the challenges facing local businesses are, was it the price? Was it the capacity to deliver?”
According to the politician he does not believe the contractor would have procured from outside of Guyana unless it was to the company’s benefit to do so.”
He said that having done such an assessment Government would be able to be cognizant of the challenges facing local businesses.

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I hope every Guyanese East Indian and dougla who love their Indian heritage learn from this example. What we are seeing here is Chinese race support of their fellow chinese brothers and sisters.                         Learn from this Guyanese East Indians and Douglas. Stop the Koolie crab dog fight up.  love and help each other like brothers and sisters.

Prashad
Prashad posted:

I hope every Guyanese East Indian and dougla who love their Indian heritage learn from this example. What we are seeing here is Chinese race support of their fellow chinese brothers and sisters.                         Learn from this Guyanese East Indians and Douglas. Stop the Koolie crab dog fight up.  love and help each other like brothers and sisters.

Who do you think screwed the East Indian,is they own mattie who did it, reread again banna.

cain

Doing business with China Chinaman and India Indians is very risky. If the business is not internationally established with a good reputation like Tata then you are at the mercy of primitive capitalism and it's various cons. I have always said we East Indians of Guyana are our own nation our own people . At the end, we can only rely on each other.

Prashad

The PPP was eager to do business with the Chinese, because Chinese businessmen pay BIG bribes. I know that for a fact since I have been doing business with them for two decades. The most expensive bribe I received was a Swedish car. I have seen others get far more than that.
So it is quite clear that the PPP accepted bribes from Chinese businesses, irrespective of how much damage it would do to local businesses. No wonder that many PPP importers are so keen to continue to do business with China. They making money whilst local providers are starved of income. The PPP government was incompetent. And the chickens are now coming home to roost.

 

Mr.T
Prashad posted:

I hope every Guyanese East Indian and dougla who love their Indian heritage learn from this example. What we are seeing here is Chinese race support of their fellow chinese brothers and sisters.                         Learn from this Guyanese East Indians and Douglas. Stop the Koolie crab dog fight up.  love and help each other like brothers and sisters.

Did your wife give you permission to say this?   She doesn't have an ounce of Indian blood, so might view your behavior as clannish, and maybe even racist.

FM

Caribbeanj has a vested interest in keeping the East Indian people in Guyana. If the East Indian people have their own independent sovereign country then the likes of Caribbeanj will not be able to say "the koolie is responsible for all of our problems".

Prashad
Prashad posted:

Caribbeanj has a vested interest in keeping the East Indian people in Guyana. If the East Indian people have their own independent sovereign country then the likes of Caribbeanj will not be able to say "the koolie is responsible for all of our problems".

Go chat with you wife and show her what you write.  Tell her that you think that her cultural is a degenerate pirate culture.

FM

Do you think this gov't. does not want Indos to get too much business from gov't.?  How do we know gov't. is not involved in this decision to buy stone from neighboring Suriname instead of contracting with an experienced company in Guyana?

Billy Ram Balgobin

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