PNC to mount legal challenge to Beal deal - Trotman Stabroek News May 28, 2000 The People's National Congress (PNC) has announced its intention to "legally challenge the Beal Deal." The announcement was made by PNC parliamentarian Raphael Trotman at an Independence Day rally held by the party on Friday night at the Square of the Revolution. Addressing a crowd estimated at about 5,000, Trotman slamming the deal, urged Guyanese not to sit back and allow the injustice to be done. If you need an acre of land, he said, go to the Ministry of Housing and Water and walk with "US$3 to pay for it and demand that you also don't want to pay tax for 99 years." Trotman stated that no facility in the world launched 20 rockets in a year. He stressed, however, that the PNC was not against foreign investment. With regard to 200 Guyanese workers being employed by Beal, these would be laid off once construction was completed, he said. In addition, Guyanese would not be allowed to use the wharf being built there. He called on citizens to dedicate themselves to the struggle. Dereck Bernard, another parlimentarian who was one of the rally speakers, echoed the PNC's concerns over the Beal agreement, noting that had they not obtained a copy of the agreement, the People's Progressive Party would have denied its terms and conditions. Leader of the PNC, Desmond Hoyte who is in England, in his Independence Day message read by PNC Treasurer Kadim Khan, also attacked the Beal deal, saying that the governemnt was "not only content to plunder our country; they are giving it away for a mess of pottage. The foul Beal deal is the ultimate act of treason, which, among other things, will create a zone of apartheid in our country, where we natives will not be allowed to go." At the start of his address, he grimly noted that "we are observing the 34th anniversary of our independence, but not with the pride and happiness which we should be experiencing at this time..." Restating the PNC's postion with regards to the upcoming general election slated for not later than Janaury 17, Hoyte insisted that it must be held by that date. Secondly, "whether or not the government gets money from foreign sources to finance the elections is an irrelevance; it is the duty of the government, in the first instance, to budget the money for holding national elections." Further, he stated that the PNC would not accept any plea that the government did not get foreign donations as an excuse for not holding the elections. The PNC leader called on his supporters to "redeem our country and allow it to resume its onward march to a rendezvous with good governance, development, and prosperity." Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today