Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan on Friday apologised for incorrectly saying the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) pulled funding for the Safe City initiative over concerns about Chinese firm Huawei.
In responding to questions asked by Stabroek News during an Alliance for Change (AFC) press conference at the party’s Kitty headquarters, Ramjattan clarified that there is insufficient money left to complete the final leg of the project. The IDB has indicated this in a statement released to this newspaper days after Ramjattan spoke about the project on the 94.1 FM Jumpstart Show last month.
“Look, this matter must be put to an end in relation to Huawei and so on. It has now been brought to me and clarified by the IDB head that it is not necessarily because Huawei is a Chinese company and they won the contract that that is why we are not getting the command centre. The command centre is not being gotten because the monies from the US$15 million CSSP [Citizen Security Strengthening Pro-gramme] programme has come to an end almost. The monies that were left now for the command centre is not going to be in a position to even carry it half way and so that is why the command centre was not going to be completed under the CSSP programme,” Ramjattan said.
