Dear Editor,
The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment is disappointed by the continuous efforts of the Stabroek News to misinform the public on the granting of a Permission of a Geological and Geophysical Survey (PGGS) and the presentation by the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert M Persaud to the Standing Sector Committee on Natural Resources on November 27, 2013.
There can be no excuse. All the facts and answers to questions on this matter have been dutifully and accurately provided to the Stabroek News and the media as a whole.
1. Attempts to suggest that the required and legal process was not followed in the processing of the PGGS were debunked as the facts were glaring. Evidence that the process of granting derived from a public and open one undermined its false claims of lack of transparency.
2. The Stabroek News then changed the angle of its story to suggest that the Minister’s presentation to the parliamentary sectoral committee was untruthful. The ministry supplied the transcript as provided by the Parliament Office which vindicated the Minister. What did the Stabroek News do? It did not retract its misleading story but then proceeded to tamper and manipulate the transcript of the Parliament Office so that its earlier erroneous version could stand. Shame!
Again for ease of reference this is what the Parliament Office provided:
Lt Col (rt’d) [Harmon]: “Thank you very much Minister. Is there though any permission or anything for any activity other than mining say for example forestry or forestry concessions issued for in that area?”
Mr R Persaud: “I am advised by the technical officer… I am told by the staff that there is no permitted forestry operation in that particular area.”
And this is the tampered version of the Parliament Office transcript the Stabroek News produced in its story (December 12) captioned: ‘Minister for grilling over New River survey grant’: “Harmon also asked whether there was any permission issued ‘or anything for any activity other than mining,’ including forestry or forestry concessions, in the area.”
3. Having been exposed for misleading the public, the Stabroek News now seeks to engage in semantics rather than sticking to the relevant facts of the matter.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment and its agencies, particularly the Guyana Geo-logy and Mines Commission remain open and available to present information so requested. Just recently, the National Assembly was supplied with all the various permits for the mining and forestry sectors from January 1, 2012 to November 2013. Further the Minister has directed the GGMC to join the GFC in putting online all the various permits and licences granted. This will be a first for Guyana.
We are aggrieved at the slew of partisan and tabloid-style reporting.
Since we are unable to get the Stabroek News to carry the unassailable facts regarding this matter, we invite the public to view the facts on the Ministry’s website: http://www. nre.gov.gy/ and watch the television excerpts of the Minister’s presentation to the sectoral committee on the TV show ‘El Dorado Shines’ which will be aired on NCN on Friday (December 13) at 19:30h as well as on other stations.
Yours faithfully,
Parmanand Persaud
Stakeholders’ Support Officer
Editor’s note
Stabroek News rejects the allegation of “tampering.” A very small portion of what Mr Harmon said in the sectoral committee was paraphrased in our report, out of which Mr Persaud has crafted a meretricious “tampering” accusation. In fact, the difference between that part of the report and the verbatim parliamentary record is negligible semantically speaking.
