Discord looms over function of joint bauxite committee
Stabroek News
May 20, 2002
Another disagreement is looming over the function of the joint bauxite committee that could further complicate the suspended dialogue process between PNC/R leader Desmond Hoyte and President Bharrat Jagdeo.
The committee, co-chaired by Robeson Benn and Professor of Economics at the University of Guyana, Dr Clive Thomas, according to Hoyte, supervised the negotiations with Cambior - the parent company of Omai Gold Mines Limited - about its equity participation in the Linden Mining Enterprise (Linmine). The role of the committee, Hoyte said, was clarified at a meeting between him and President Jagdeo, at which Prime Minister Sam Hinds, Benn and Dr Thomas were present. He said that this followed the Prime Minister's "usurpation" of the committee's functions in the negotiations with Alcoa for its proposed continued involvement with the industry in the Berbice River.
The committee, according to the Prime Minister, has completed the negotiations and a memorandum of understanding is due to be signed shortly as both teams need to get clearance from their principals on "two small points."
According to Hoyte, the negotiations were to be carried out by a sub-committee of the committee and its members are Winston Brassington, head of the Privatisation Unit; Winston Jordan, budget adviser, Ministry of Finance; and US-based Financial Consultant, Patrick De Freitas. President Jagdeo nominated Brassington and Jordan and Hoyte nominated De Freitas.
However, at a press conference on Tuesday, Hoyte told reporters that the government had reneged on this agreement and that President Jagdeo had supervised the team and the committee had not been kept in the loop.
Prime Minister Hinds, at a press conference later that day, disputed that there was any supervisory role. Brassington, who told reporters that the team was a government team and that had been made clear to the committee when consultations were held prior to the start of the negotiations, supported him.
He said that the team as a whole subscribed to that view.
Ron Webster, chairman of the Bauxite Industry Development Company (BIDCO), Linmine parent company, also supporting the Prime Minister, asserted that in the final analysis it was the BIDCO board which had to approve any agreement reached with Cambior.
He said too that two members of the joint bauxite committee were members of his board, which was briefed on the commercial issues of the negotiations by Brassington. The BIDCO board was among a number of agencies that Brassington said he briefed as well as the co-chair of the joint bauxite committee to whom he wrote about it. He said that he was still awaiting the comments of the committee.
Prime Minister Hinds defended the restricted circulation of information about the negotiations on the grounds of confidentiality, explaining that in any event the final agreement would be laid in the parliament.
President Jagdeo and Hoyte had established the joint bauxite committee to make recommendations for the resuscitation of the industry and the bauxite communities. They also asked the committee to interrupt its work and to make recommendations on the proposals by Alcoa and the Bermine Employees' Group for addressing the restructuring of Aroaima and Bermine.
The group met Alcoa but terminated discussions when Alcoa decided to withdraw from Aroaima while the committee was yet to conclude discussions with the employees' group whom sources said was concerned over the exclusive right to the use of the loading basin and mooring facilities granted to Viceroy Shipping, one of the contractors at Aroaima. Government was wooing Viceroy to take up an equity participation in the company, which is now fully owned by the government.