Best known until now as home to the Essequibo Boys School (renamed the New Opportunity Corps), a corrective institution for young offenders, Onderneeming on the Essequibo Coast will shortly become the locale for a facility that is likely to be much more pleasing to its guests.
Essequibo businessmen Ramesh Ramotar is currently in the process of completing the first phase of a two-phased US$1 million resort and fun park which he hopes will bring visitors to Onderneeming on much more pleasing missions.
Over the weekend the investor told Stabroek Business that when completed the Rooster Resort and Fun Park which sits on a five-acre expanse of sandy real estate about five miles off the public road will include an eight-room hotel, three cabins, bars and a kitchen. A range of entertainment will be offered from a huge stage which is already under construction
Ramotar told Stabroek Business that the first phase of the project will focus primarily on the completion of the fun park which will include the creation of picnic facilities, fun rides and a car park for visitors to the facility. A creek that runs alongside the resort will be ‘cultivated’ for swimming and relaxation. The fun park phase of the facility is expected to be open to visitors by year end and according to Ramotar work on the second phase of the Resort will begin in earnest early next year.
The 50-year-old Wakenaam-born businessmen told Stabroek Business that much of his most recent investment will be financed from his other business interests which include rice farming and milling, logging, sawmilling, cash crop farming and construction. Ranotar said that the lumber needs of the Project will be met from his saw mill and that his own experience in the construction sector will also be a means of saving on building costs.
Asked about how he proposes to promote the Resort at home and abroad Ranotar, said that he has already been giving thought to how best to market the facility. He acknowledged that marketing the Resort abroad will require additional investment but said that he hoped that the quality of what the facility seeks to offer will bring large numbers of Guyanese and visitors to the country there.
Ramotar expects that the Rooster Resort and Fun Park will also help popularise Onderneeming, including its well-known hot and cold lake as well as other communities on the Essequibo Coast. He says that he intends to make incremental additions to the facility “down the road”.
Ramotar, who says that he is seeking to further diversify his business interests on the Essequibo Coast, also took Stabroek Business on a visit to a building at Land of Plenty housing some of the equipment for a factory intended for the manufacture of plantain chips for the local and international markets. Ramotar told Stabroek Business that he is in the process of acquiring the packaging equipment from overseas and that he expects production to start in the new year. Plantains for the factory will be harvested from his farm in the Pomeroon River.
