Prime Minister Sam Hinds yesterday said that a search has begun to recruit up to five senior managers with the required expertise to run the Aroaima Bauxite Company (ABC) which government will fully own from January 1.

He said no position has been taken on whether the senior management should be Guyanese or non-Guyanese.

Hinds in a statement was responding to the page one lead story [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] in yesterday's edition headlined `All-Guyanese management for Aroaima' which he said was misleading. However, the headline simply referred to the fact that as of January 1 Guyanese would be in charge of the operations. The story also went on to point out that this would only be so initially.

In the interim, Hinds said that Guyanese Dennis Yeung has been identified to head ABC's operations at the mine site. The release also revealed that former bauxite industry official Bernard Crawford will head the company's Georgetown office.

Hinds said the only consideration in hiring "has been to search for persons of the required expertise and experience who can be added to the 420-strong ABC team with the minimum disruption of the existing culture of achievement".

He added that to fill short-term needs of two to three months, one of the departing senior managers of ABC, who is going into retirement, and another person who served previously in the bauxite sector in Guyana are expected to be on site at Aroaima before mid-January. Stabroek News understands that the latter individual is Australian Morrie Stuart who was chief executive officer at Linmine.

In the statement, Hinds said he had visited ABC on December 26/27 and thanked the departing managers for their contributions. He urged the workforce to maintain their discipline and positive work attitudes "so that ABC can survive the next two years during which demand and prices for bauxite may remain suppressed so that they could enjoy the resurgence in demand and prices expected thereafter".