Beal officials to meet Guyana Forum
Officials from Beal Aerospace Technologies were expected in Guyana over the weekend and are scheduled to meet the Guyana Forum grouping tomorrow to address its concerns. It is expected that the officials will also meet the PNC and other concerned bodies before the public forum scheduled for Friday. The government is working to close a deal with Beal before the end of the month. The PNC issued a statement on the Beal transaction on Friday, expressing the view that the government was proceeding with the transaction for the setting up of a satellite space port in Guyana on the basis of "any deal is better than no deal". Based on the outcome of a meeting on Wednesday with Prime Minister Sam Hinds, the PNC said that the entire process had been hastily entered into without the necessary preparation including investigation by qualified and experienced experts or consultations and discussions with social partners locally. The party opined that an agreement with Beal was already in place and there was little chance of any changes being made before the signing ceremony later this month. "The public forum scheduled for Friday, December 17, which would proceed the singing is yet another cosmetic exercise designed to hoodwink the Guyanese public," the PNC release stated. The statement expressed concern that the government seemed to be going about the negotiations on speculative assumptions which have not been tested by the government negotiating team. The party was concerned that the Prime Minister seemed not to see a distinction between a long-term lease and an outright sale of 26,010 acres of land to the company and found the conditions of sale to be strange. The statement also noted that Hinds was not certain whether the estuary of the Waini River will fall within the primary area which will have implications for access to the hinterland area. Hinds, the statement, said, was also unclear under what conditions the Beal project could be terminated.
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