President of Panther Recycling Corporation of Canada, Michael Mosgrove has rubbished a memorandum of understanding that Guyanese-born Canadian citizen Mohammed Osman signed with the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development saying that he, not Osman, is the owner of the name Natural Globe Inc.
On Monday, Osman was introduced as the CEO of Natural Globe Inc. at the signing of an MOU between that company and the Ministry of Local Government for the establishment of a recycling plant. At the ceremony, Minister of local Government Ganga Persaud made remarks justifying the need for the facility and pointed out that because the country has been developing so rapidly, there has been an increase in waste.
In a telephone call to Stabroek News yesterday, Mosgrove explained that his company Panther Recycling Corporation only recently incorporated the name Natural Globe Inc. Mosgrove said he felt the need to make contact with the newspaper after reading the Stabroek News article captioned, ‘Businessman in waste recycling MOU has only done prototype before’ online yesterday.
Mosgrove said that the Government of Guyana should be wary of Osman and his claim that he is going to build a recycling plant worth US$30 million and which will employ 500 people.
“I own Natural Globe Incorporated. … This guy is doing nothing but lying here,” said Mosgrove. “This is not good for Guyana,” he said.
He said that the misrepresentation only happened in Guyana and thus if he leaves Guyana without penalty that would be the end of the matter. “The Government made a choice and I think it is a bad choice,” he said.
Karl G. Melinz, Panther Recycling Corporation’s Barrister and Solicitor in Canada, “The name Natural Globe Inc. is available to use. I have also done an Ontario corporate search which came back that there is no such corporation in Ontario.”
Mosgrove said that it is folly to believe that one needs US$30 million for a waste management and recycling facility when a similar facility that serves a community in Ontario with a population similar to what could be found on Guyana’s coast costs a lot less – in the neighbourhood of less than US$5 million. He also called laughable the idea that the facility in Guyana would need 500 persons to operate it.
Mosgrove said that since his company owns the name Natural Globe Inc., it follows that it also owns the MOU in its name. “It is our MOU and we would be more than willing to build a facility…we had made a number of proposals to the Government, inclusive of water treatment plant, morgue and recycling facility,” he said. His company has recycling operations in Jamaica and Trinidad.
When Stabroek News made contact with Osman yesterday, he promised to return this newspaper’s phone call but up to press time had not done so. He said that at the time when this newspaper contacted him that he was in a meeting.
When this newspaper had spoken to Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Colin Croal on Tuesday, he had said that over a period of time a number of firms had sent in proposals and expressions of interest for a facility of that nature.
Those expressions of interest were received by the Office of the President and the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment. Croal said that after considering the proposals, it was decided that Osman’s was the most suitable and Cabinet gave a no-objection for the inking of an MOU.
Observers pointed out that it is baffling to learn that the Ministry actually performed a due diligence as part of its decision making in granting Osman an MOU above other companies. They said that because of the nature of the arrangement there is no way to determine whether the Government made a good choice since there is no formal way of finding out what other companies made proposals.
Surprise is also being expressed at the admission by Osman in yesterday’s Stabroek News that the closest he had come to a waste recycling plant was a prototype.
Questions have also been raised as to why the soliciting of expressions of interest was not done under the public procurement laws of the country.
