In the latest salvo in the war of words between Brian ‘BK’ Tiwarie and former president Donald Ramotar, the businessman yesterday claimed that he only penned a letter affirming his support for the PPP a month before the 2015 general elections as he feared his aviation company would be evicted from the GuySuCo hangar at the Ogle airport.
Tiwarie released a letter to the media yesterday explaining why he pledged his support to the governing party even though in an earlier missive he had said he decided to switch support to the APNU+AFC coalition a year before the May, 2015 elections.
His letter came after Ramotar released the letter that Tiwarie had written to him, affirming his support for the then government. In the letter, dated March 23, 2015, which Tiwarie sent to the then president, he said, “I am completely disheartened by your recent charges, made both publicly and privately, that I am a supporter of Brigadier David Granger and his opposition alliance. I am indeed further affected by your charges that I have sought to aid the opposition by sharing with them some documents in my possession.”
He added, “Mr President, nothing could be further from the truth. Please note sir I have always been a longstanding supporter of the PPP from long before 1992.”
However, Tiwarie claims that the letter “was authored in an effort to prevent further victimization of the BK International Group of Companies, more specifically, the eviction of Jags Aviation, a subsidiary of the BK Group from the GuySuco Hangar at the now Eugene Correia International Airport.”
According to Tiwarie, this correspondence was “a case of responding to a threat and demands for an apology.
“In fact it was on the recommendation of a former senior minister that I should go beyond a formal apology and restate my allegiance to the party, which would have quelled the anger of the then president,” he said.
According to Tiwarie, the then president was angry at him for allowing the then opposition to utilise his company for a flight into the Essequibo region for the election campaign. Ramotar, he said, was also provided a flight to conduct election campaign activities in the region.
“Our aviation consultant at the time, Mr Bobby Vieira had called and informed me that the company had provided a flight to the same area a day before comprising a team of APNU/AFC campaign officials headed by Mr Raphael Trotman. Mr Trotman’s team was due to return to Georgetown the same morning that Mr Ramotar and his team went in.
“As suggested by Mr Vieira, it would have been much more economical for the aircraft taking in the then president (as this was a one-way charter) to ferry Mr Trotman and his team back to Georgetown. Since this operation apparently annoyed the then president which he displayed on several occasions later, we were advised to write and offer an apology for any discomfort we may have caused him,” Tiwarie stated.
He added that this apology failed to “quell the anger” of Ramotar, whom he accused of threatening to evict his aviation company from the GuySuCo hangar, and on the advice of the unnamed minister he penned the letter affirming his support for the PPP.
“We run an operation involving aircraft with significant costs. We never discriminated against anyone or political party which requested our services. Maybe the ex-president felt this should have been standard procedure,” Tiwarie wrote.
In his letter to Ramotar, Tiwarie had noted that when he defended himself against claims that he was treated favourably by the PPP/C governments, he had publicly said, “I have never joined the PPP but I was a born PPP.”
In his letter yesterday, he noted that many persons were born with political affiliations but they have the democratic right to choose a political direction. “My support for change was as wanting as any or most Guyanese, thus my choice to whom I choose and would support. My point is we should put Guyana first,” he added, while also noting that he lost contracts under the current administration.
Tiwarie also maintained his call for Ramotar to address issues he has raised regarding the acquisition of state property by his brother at grossly under-valued prices.
Tiwarie had previously rebuked Ramotar for stating that BK International had taken possession of eight Surendra Engineering Company Limited containers valued at $800 million. Tiwarie said that the containers held steel rods to the value of US$153,000 [G$32 million] and were sold at a public auction held by the courts. BK had sued Surendra for $400 million pertaining to foundation work that had been done on the specialty hospital site. Tiwarie charged that the Managing Director (MD) of Surendra was prevented by a court order from leaving Guyana, pending the honouring of the judgment granted to BK but that the Ramotar administration, on the advice of his Attorney General, Anil Nandlall allowed the MD to leave.
This revelation was in response to an article in Thursday’s edition of Stabroek News reporting the former president as querying why the current administration had allowed BK to take possession of the containers to the detriment of the former PPP/C government’s $950 million claim against Surendra.
Tiwarie then called on Ramotar to explain, “How a 40-foot container of spares for a barge/tug valued at US$100K was delivered to the former president’s brother by a Chinese businessman operating at Land of Canaan, what import duties etc were paid on the said container, how [government holding company] NICIL was able to sell the former president’s brother three barges and one tug for less than $20 million during his tenure and why was there no tender for this sale.”
Sources, who are privy to the sale, told Stabroek News that the key barge in question was built in 2014 by Nurse Shipbuilders of Parika for the Maritime Administration Depart-ment, which in turn sold it to Shamus Ramotar. From then the barge with on ent-funded contracts.
Sources close to Tiwarie have told Stabroek News that the businessman lost confidence in the PPP after Ramotar was nominated as presidential candidate in 2011.
When Ramotar won the presidency, sources say, Tiwarie was vocal in PPP circles that he did not believe that Ramotar was the person to lead the nation.
In his letter to the editor, Tiwarie had defended his change to supporting the coalition in 2014, saying that from a patriotic vantage point he believed that was the change needed and he was not the first.
“For those like former president Ramotar and others who want to convey the impression that BK only jumped ship after the new government was formed in May 2015, I want to make it abundantly clear that like every patriotic person in Guyana, I took a conscious decision to support the move for change and this decision was made one year before the 2015 elections. There are numerous persons who can support this,” he stated.
Tiwarie was one of those businessmen who attended the inauguration of President David Granger at the Public Buildings and immediately assisted with clearing up the area around the Brickdam Arch.
Tiwarie was controversially appointed as an advisor to Minister of State Joseph Harmon. This appointment was immediately rescinded by Granger whilst Harmon and Tiwarie were on a trip to China. They were photographed in China with representatives of the Chinese logging company Baishanlin, raising a barrage of questions many of which remain unanswered.
