Dear Editor,
Reference is made to Prime Minister Samuel Hinds’ letter ‘Boilers, steam turbines and alternators are still in the steam power station in Linden‘ (SN, May 11). The commitment to principles embedded in universal declarations, international conventions and the Guyana Constitution will be discomfitting to violators. If leaders desire silence or acceptance of their behaviour it behoves them to uphold the oath they have taken to respect and protect. When they fail to do so, they must hear from us.
The claim by Mr Hinds of an agreement between him and APNU leaders for an increase in Linden’s electricity tariff has no merit. Any leader who disregards their constitutional duty to consult with the people and have them involved in decision-making that affects their well-being, as per Article 13 of the Guyana Constitution, must hear the voices of resistance. Leaders are elected to represent their supporters’ interest, not dictate to them; moreso the power they have is not theirs, it belongs to the people who are duty bound to ensure it is used in a way that is consistent with their legitimate demands.
At the 1992 GAWU Delegates Conference in conversation with Mr Hinds as prime ministerial candidate, he said when the PPP wins the elections he will give leadership to a revival of the bauxite fortune by 1) applying Alcan’s study to have LINMINE produce 700 thousands metric tonnes of RASC and increase production of MAZ; and 2) he will seek joint venture partners to produce in commercial quantities GUYCOR 93 and GUYMOL, two products that customers would have purchased. The following is the ‘leadership’ Hinds delivered for bauxite as the responsible minister.
The Australian company MINPROC was given a contract to manage LINMINE in June 1992 and in November 1992, PM Hinds in his first engagement with Charles Sampson and myself, informed the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) that LINMINE will reduce production from over 4000 tonnes to 2500 tonnes and workers will be sent home. The union advised against the decision and pointed out that the company will lose its share in the international marketplace and Guyana will be deemed an unreliable supplier. This information was revealed to Stabroek News. Mr Hinds and MINPROC‘s CEO, Australian, Brian Maher denied the intention to downscale production and lay off workers. In February 1993, the unions in bauxite (GB&GWU and GMWU) were invited by LINMINE to discuss making the jobs of 1700 employees redundant.
Mr Hinds is being untruthful when he says that “in 1983… nearly 2000 workers – about one third of the workforce in Linden then – were retrenched.” The company in its advisory to the unions, addressed to Christopher James, General Secretary of the Guyana Mine Workers Union (GMWU) and myself, advised that 1287 workers would be retrenched. At the conclusion of this exercise 992 were retrenched. What Mr Hinds has not told the nation is that in 1993, under his leadership, 1700 workers were sent home and before the privatization of the company in 2005 the entire workforce was terminated. Hinds also forgot to tell the nation that he stood in Parliament and said his advice to RUSAL resulted in the dismissal of the 57 workers in December 2009.
The PM has corroborated my statement that the diesel engines were removed from Linden when he says, “yes, two of the abandoned engines were transferred to GPL in 2009 and were totally rebuilt and installed at Onverwagt, West Coast Berbice and Versailles, West Bank Demerara.” While he calls them ‘abandoned’ to justify their removal, suffice it to say we now know the engines were not only taken to Berbice but are in two regions the PPP won. Mr Hinds needs to come clean and tell this nation where is the steam turbine that was removed from Linden, which was bought when Dunstan Barrow was CEO of GUYMINE. Mr Hinds is again dissembling when he says the “steam power station became one of the most costly generators of electricity.” In fact, this was the station that was taken over and manned by Texas Ohio, the same group that rented Mr Hinds’ house in Richmond Hill, Linden.
Linden always had independent electricity generation, even until today. Electricity and water were always elements in the production cost of bauxite, and the unions, which have been in the industry since the 1940s, factored these into negotiations with the company. Water and electricity were part of the negotiated conditions of service for the workers and fall in the category of deferred wages/salaries. Water and electricity were never free. It is the PPP which gave away the workers’ sweat equity, non-renewable resources and sold the company for US$1.00. They ignored the unions’ effort to discuss and secure the nation’s mineral rights and the workers’ sweat equity.
The issue of the bauxite pension is not one of collection – I have not uplifted mine – it is about the government’s refusal to entertain advice to save the plan to ensure economic continuity for the retired. The GB&GWU advice to convert at least a portion of the plan into an investment fund to ensure continuity of income on retirement by having bauxite workers and their families borrow from the Fund towards their economic sustenance and empowerment, were ignored by Messrs Hinds and Winston Brassington.
Contrary to Mr Hinds’ claim, moneys were paid to NIS and the pension fund in the 1970s and 1980s. His claim is also untrue that “the 69KV line joining Garden of Eden and Linden, by the end of the 1980s, neither GEC nor the Linden Bauxite Company was in a position to send power to the other.” The national grid was receiving electricity from Linden when the PPP took office in 1992 and the lines could not have been vandalised.
Under Mr Hinds’ stewardship a fully functioning mill to produce GUYCOR 93 was sold by MINPROC as scrap metal, bringing a halt to production. Under the leadership of Horace James LINMINE submitted a plan to the PPP government requesting US$14M to rehabilitate the company. This was denied even at the same time the government injected in excess of US$200M for sugar expansion at Skeldon. In the case of the tax free overtime fought for by the bauxite workers and extended to the sugar workers by the PNC government, the PPP government took away this benefit from bauxite workers but kept it in sugar. The more than $2.5 billion bauxite workers’ contributory pension plan was destroyed by the PPP even as they injected millions to save the sugar workers’ pension plan. The bauxite workers’ self contributory Thrift Plan which provided soft loans for the construction and purchasing of houses was broken up by the PPP. Also, the bauxite workers’ trade school was taken away even as the government allows sugar to maintain control of their trade school.
The people of Guyana are asked, would they sit silent or support similar attacks by any government on sugar workers (a sister production sector), the way the PPP relentlessly attacks bauxite workers and their unions? I ask the PPP supporters, allies, sugar workers and sugar unions, if the PNC government had dared try this with sugar would they have supported it or remained silent?
Mr Hinds should know the people are not fools. “The GPL has requested a 19.5 per cent increase in electricity tariff [and] Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon, in signalling recognition of the impact of a 19% tariff increase on the working people and businesses, disclosed that government intends to rely on a number of interventions to offset the increase. He pointed out that government will only allow GPL to introduce bearable tariff increases while seeking parliamentary considerations of subsidies, similar to 2008” (KN, February 6). The Guyana Chronicle editorial of April 19 reminds of “A scheduled 20% across-the-board tariff increase for consumers of electricity….” And the Office of the President and PPP say, “If GPL is to continue to provide a reliable service, then the power company by pure economic pressure will be forced to raise its tariffs by around 25%-30%” (SN, May 13).
An electricity hike is pending and the government is hoping to mask it by pitting groups against each other and making Linden the issue when Linden is not tied to the national grid, and the mismanaged GPL continues to lose approximately 40 per cent in electricity, the burden of which this government wants to pass on to the consumers. I stand by my statement that the President is misrepresenting issues and using coded language in a strategy of divide and rule. The exposure of Mr Hinds’ dissimulations confirms my position.
The Linden issue is not about electricity. It is about a continuous attack on the economic self determination of a people. If a group does not embrace the PPP leaders, the PPP will impose their management and will on the people even if it violates the constitution and laws in the process. The electricity issue is another relentless act of transgressing persons’ rights, compromising their quality of life, their dignity and self worth, and putting them in a condition of life not of their making.
Lindeners are working on a plan to ensure their economic survival/empowerment, consistent with their right to self determination. The representative national leaders must respect the people’s right and give support to the efforts of a proud people. The national leaders must also bring to the nation’s attention the electricity financial relationship in Linden with NICIL, LECI and BOSAI.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis
