Come January 1, the bauxite industry will once again come under the control of an all-Guyanese management team.

Aroaima Bauxite Company (ABC) for which the Guyana government will have sole responsibility from January 1, will initially be managed by Guyanese.

Prime Minister Sam Hinds told Stabroek News last night that none of the present expatriate staff will remain after December 31, save for one member who will return by mid-January to work for a number of months. That gentleman, the Prime Minister said, had been instrumental in the development of the safety and work practices and would do some work in the development of ore reserves for the future. The agreement, which allowed the Guyana government to acquire Alcoa's 50 per cent stake in Berbice-based ABC, had provided for some of the management to remain but without any ties to Alcoa. That agreement also converted the US$68 million debt that the jointly-owned ABC owed to Alcoa into preference shares.

The Prime Minister also said that the agreement on the 'givebacks' by the contractors - JP Knight, Boskalis and Viceroy Shipping was all but settled. However, he declined to say if any of them had responded positively to the government's offer of equity in the operation, merely saying that the issue should come up in about three months' time.

Asked if a seat on the ABC board would be left vacant to be taken up by any of the contractors who take equity in the ABC operations, the Prime Minister said that the vacant seat was not necessarily left open for the contractor-shareholder, explaining that adjustments could always be made to accommodate an investor. However, he said, there was no pressure one way or the other to fill the vacant seat on the board.

Prime Minister Hinds was also reticent about commenting on the agreement arrived at between the management and the unions about the conditions for workers from January 1, expressing a preference for the management or the unions to address that issue. However, Stabroek News has reported that the unions had already agreed to adjusted conditions when ABC began cutting back on its production.

An official of the union that represents the ABC workforce told Stabroek News that the conditions obtaining at December 31 would continue into the new year.