Dear Editor,
SN of January 18 reported that the MV Torani ran aground between Hog Island and Wakenaam in the Essequibo River on January 17 after engine failure. One writer on your website claimed that the Malali and Torani were bought by Burnham, while another asked where the first got the information. There the question seems to have remained unanswered.
May I therefore try to provide an answer for the two concerned and for the general information of other readers. The Burnham-D’Aguiar coalition did not come into government until after the 1964 December elections. I remember when the MV Torani was built by Guyanese marine architects, engineers, technicians and foundry workers in the marine shipyard of Messrs Sprostons Demerara Foundry Ltd on Lombard Street in Georgetown. The MV Makouria and the MV Malali were built in the United Kingdom. The Council of Ministers (the Cabinet) also decided that the MV Torani should be built in Guyana. Mr Ram Karran (Boysie) was the Minister of Works and Communications in the 1957 PPP government. As far as I remember, the MV Torani was launched by Mr Earl Maxwell Gladstone Wilson, Minister of Communications in the 1961 Government when Dr Cheddi Jagan was Premier. The Minister launched the MV Torani with coconut water instead of the customary champagne, and later when the transportation services were disrupted by politically-driven industrial action in 1964, he personally directed that the ships should continue to be operated by replacement workers.
Yours faithfully,
Rampersaud Tiwari
