Dear Editor,
In December 2013, Minister of Agriculture, Dr Leslie Ramsammy stated that he was unaware of any relationship between the DY Patil group of companies and Surendra Engineering. On that occasion, Minister Ramsammy denied that DY Patil was given any special consideration before being given access to 10,000 acres of Guyana’s land for an agricultural project, without tender. So I did a little checking for myself.
Editor, we recall that head of the DY Patil Group, Dr Ajeenkya Patil was appointed by Guyana’s government as Guyana’s Honorary Consul to Mumbai in March 2014. We also recall that the DY Patil University in India has conferred an Honorary Doctorate on former President Jagdeo.
The other company, Surendra Engineering was given the contract to build the specialty hospital on the East Coast of Demerara. That company had also built the Enmore Packaging Plant, that is packaging very little. We also recall that Surendra Engineering had been contracted to supply fourteen drainage pumps to Guyana at a cost of some US$4 million.
I found, using Google, that the Managing Director of Surendra Engineering, Mr Surendra Parikh, and Dr Ajeenkya DY Patil, are both members of an apparently small group of persons in an organisation named the ‘Indo-African Chamber of Commerce and Industries.’ So it would seem that the heads of the companies may be connected after all.
I also found that the Indo-African Chamber of Commerce and Industries, has extensive business interests in Zambia. These include agriculture, banking, telecommunications, ethanol production, oil refining and power generation. In fact, the same type of businesses that DY Patil is proposing for Guyana.
Incidentally, Mr Surendra Parikh is Mumbai’s Honorary Consul to Zambia.
Perhaps Minister Ramsammy may wish to use Google.
Yours faithfully,
Mark DaCosta
