Beal deal was never for real - Hoyte By William Walker Stabroek News October 26, 2000 The Beal deal was never for real, claimed People's National Congress (PNC) leader, Desmond Hoyte, yesterday as he derided the reasons given for the collapse of US company, Beal Aerospace by its chairman, Andrew Beal. The Guyana Government earlier this year signed a contract with Beal Guyana Launch Services LLC, a Beal Aerospace subsidiary, to set up a commercial space launch facility in the north western region of Guyana. Beal announced on Monday that it was ceasing operations on that day because of competition from the US government-funded NASA. The PNC had opposed the deal on several grounds including the paltry benefits that would flow to the government; the low price Beal was to pay for State land, and that the many terms in favour of Beal were "humiliating, illegal and unconstitutional." Hoyte told a press conference he hosted at Congress Place that none of the reasons given by Beal were unknown or suddenly emerged. "It was public knowledge that NASA was a player (and always a player) in the space launch industry and that as a Federal Government agency, it was being financed by the US government." Hoyte said also that it was "always problematical, too, whether or not the US authorities would agree to the transfer of space launching technology to Guyana." Claiming that Beal's collapse had vindicated the party's stand in opposing the deal, Hoyte said, "the result of this fiasco is that Guyana has now become the laughing stock of the Region." "The Beal deal was never for real," he asserted. He recalled that his party "had categorised Beal Launch Services LLC as a shell company and Beal Aerospace, the principal in this venture, as being an unviable speculator." Hoyte also accused Prime Minister Sam Hinds, who signed the deal on behalf of the government, and Beal Aerospace, of misrepresentation about Beal having developed a reliable rocket launching system. He referred to a release from the Prime Minister's office on May 31 in which the Prime Minister said that "Beal has built and has already successfully fired the largest liquid rocket engine built since the Apollo programme in the 1960s" and "the programme started in 1997 to build a lighter, more reliable, more economic space vehicle to launch international satellites." Beal's misrepresentation, Hoyte said, was contained in information posted on June 9, on its website that "Beal is working (with Guyana's) environmental authorities to develop a regional wildlife protection zone surrounding the facility similar to those found at Cape Canaveral in Florida." "This statement was," Hoyte said, "of course absolutely untrue." Hoyte also observed that while the Prime Minister had not kept his promise to lay the agreement with Beal in the parliament, "this government had the presumption and cynicism to seek from the National Assembly the sum of $11M to pay for expenses connected with the promotion of this unsavoury project." He said that his party "demands an accounting for the expenditure of this money." Finally Hoyte said that he hoped that Beal had discharged all its liabilities to Guyanese citizens for goods supplied and services rendered. Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today