President promises more investment concessions
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has promised to provide "all the concessions in the books" in his government's bid to secure investments to propel the economy. Speaking to Lindeners during the two-day stay in the bauxite mining town with Cabinet Ministers last week, he acknowledged that "more generous" concessions will be needed to create jobs on a national level. Although he did not provide details, the President promised a better arrangement in the fight to boost the country's labour market. Unemployment at Linden has been calculated at 60 per cent, and among the job-creating projects Mr. Jagdeo wants to get off the ground is the Wray bag factory, at Amelia's Ward, and the Dalawalla venture down the Demerara River, north of Linden. The bag producing enterprise can absorb some 500 persons, mainly women, and President Jagdeo told concerned residents that the Government took a 10 per cent equity stake in the business to nurse it along. This project has been delayed by an ongoing controversy between the industrialist and officials of the Chinese National Complete Plant Import and Export (COMPLANT), which has provided equipment for the venture. At a press conference Saturday to wrap up the historic Cabinet stay in the Demerara municipality, Mr. Jagdeo said that although the offers have not been taken up by entrepreneurs, the Government was still committed to earlier guarantees it promised them under the special incentives regime for investing in Linden. "You have a sympathetic Government," he told members of the Guyana Metal Mining and General Workers Union (GMM&GWU) at a meeting at the union hall on Wismar Street. His earnest addresses about job creation, especially in Linden, were made against genuine fears in the town that scores of Linden Mining Enterprise (LINMINE) employees will join the bread line when the company is eventually divested. The Privatisation Unit and LINMINE management have gone through all the necessary phases for divestment, and the strategic partner is left to be selected by the Government. Bauxite unions have been pressing the Government for a 104 weeks compensation package for displaced workers, instead of the 52 weeks floated by LINMINE administrators during negotiations. Mr. Jagdeo told the Chronicle that his administration favours the unions' recommendation, since this 104-week compensation will be a better `hand shake' for departing employees, some of whom worked with the firm for some 40 years. The President admitted that it was "hard to send home (the LINMINE) workers," in the face of the prolonged crisis which has been hammering the one-time prosperous town.
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