A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU) Member of Parliament Joseph Harmon has written to China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) expressing dismay that the combined Opposition was not consulted on a recent visit by that company to discuss the Cheddi Jagan International Airport expansion project in the wake of corruption concerns regarding its parent company.
A letter dated June 29 and addressed to CHEC’s regional office in Kingston, Jamaica, said, “A Partnership for National Unity being together with the Alliance for Change the majority in the National Assembly takes umbrage at being ignored by your company on its visit to Guyana to review a major infrastructure project as the Cheddi Jagan Airport expansion.”
“A full engagement with us would have ensured a better understanding of the project that could have conditioned our support for it, as we feel that a major opportunity has been missed,” said Harmon in the letter. CHEC is one of the many subsidiaries of China Communications and Construction Company (CCCC) which was slapped with the World Bank debarment sanction from 2009 to 2017.
“Please be assured that as representatives of the people we will continue to carefully scrutinise this project and any other project of such scale and magnitude as it relates to infrastructural works in Guyana,” Harmon said.
At a press conference on Thursday, CHEC’s Regional Director for the Americas, Zhongdong Tang said at a press conference that the company met and had open discussions with some civil society groups, including the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and the Private Sector Commission. He said however that it was not possible for CHEC to meet with all groups on this visit and said that the company will continue to be engaged with various stakeholder groups of the Guyanese society, including residents living near the airport.
At the same press conference, company representatives addressed a number of issues, including the debarment, the contract signed with the government and infrastructure projects it is interested in developing in Guyana, including a deep water harbour and a railway link.
Further, officials of the company revealed that they have not been officially informed of the Guyana Government’ s review of the World Bank’s debarring of its parent company China Communications and Construction Company (CCCC) and all of its subsidiaries from participating in projects funded with World Bank funds.
Although preparatory work is continuing on-site for the design of the US$138M expansion project, Office of the President last month said construction would not get underway until the conclusion of a review of the World Bank sanction against CCCC.
It had also said Chinese authorities and representatives of the government, the Ministry of Public Works, CHEC and the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China were all engaged in the examination of the sanction.
Speaking at a Private Sector Commission event last week, President Donald Ramotar affirmed that a review was ongoing, assuring that Government would be safeguarding the national interests.
The airport project includes an extension of the runway to a total of 10,800 feet to accommodate large transatlantic aircraft, along with construction of a new terminal building, acquisition of eight boarding bridges, and installation of other state-of-the-art equipment.
