Three years after the launch of the Haier Electrical Appliances Ltd plant at Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, which was intended to assemble 200 laptops per day along with televisions, the space is being used for storage.
Brain James, the company’s local representative, told Stabroek News that the ever-changing technology landscape and the high cost of production and energy have stalled the project indefinitely.
James noted that the high-tech development field can be one where by the time you get things off the ground, the world has moved on to the next thing.
Asked whether this would have been known long before Haier proposed opening an assembly plant in Guyana, James said to some extent.
He noted that after the first wave of One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) computers were issued, the then PPP/C government had committed to a second and third wave that never materialised. Under the previous administration, there were numerous complaints that the netbooks issued under the OLPF project, which faced tremendous scrutiny, were shoddily made. Minister of State Joseph Harmon, after a recent tour of the OLPF offices, said he found an inventory of “unserviceable and defective” computers.
The company had been awarded the US$7.56 million contract for the supply of 27,000 netbooks for the OLPF project in 2012. The project has been put under review by the new government.
James noted that without a large-scale contract, such as the OLPF, the costs are too high. He said the opportunity to partake in the
