Marcelle Thomas

Chairperson of the recently-established Bid Protest Committee (BPC) Renee McDonald has resigned even as the body’s first case—Cevons Waste Management’s protest against the Ministry of Communities over the award of a $221M Haags Bosch landfill maintenance contract—awaits a decision.

After more than half a century of practice, Dr Gladstone Mitchell has hung up his stethoscope, but he wants local politicians to stop interfering in the policy decisions, made by medical professionals that are aimed at developing the nation’s healthcare system.

The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has removed its dress code. “We don’t want the taxpayers to feel as if we are turning our backs on them… and more so if they are coming to pay their revenues,” Chairman of the GRA Board Rawle Lucas told Stabroek News yesterday.

In an effort to allay fears it is losing its identity within the APNU+AFC coalition government, Alliance for Change (AFC) representatives were on Saturday urged by its executive to make themselves relevant and to be vocal on issues of national importance, particularly at the local government level.

Saying the process was unfair, Cevons Waste Management has filed a protest with the newly-established Bid Protest Committee (BPC) over the award of the recently announced $221M contract to Puran Brothers Disposal Inc.

Timehri residents, who once feared being forcibly removed from near to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) because of the ongoing US$150M expansion project, are breathing a sigh of relief as government has begun constructing new houses for them.

A decision by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to apply previously unimplemented import taxes on a range of hardware and other inputs has left the manufacturing sector warning of dire consequences and Opposi-tion Leader Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday called for a reversal of the decision.

A $2 billion bridge across the Demerara River at Linden, the upgrade of wharves across the country and the construction of a waterfront at the Stabroek Market are among a range of infrastructural projects that government hopes to fund with grant resources from the United Kingdom.

While seeking to ensure a reliable electricity supply, the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL) has set its sights on having over 30% of its generation from renewable energy sources by 2020, according to Board Chairman Robert Badal.

The troubled Specialty Hospital project is now on hold as government’s handpicked contractor, Fedders Lloyd has been barred by India from participating in such contracts until 2020.

The United States has again pledged support for government’s plans to lay the groundwork for the oil sector as well as the transparent management of potential revenues and to ensure that the people benefit.

Over five years after she vanished, the police believe they have solved the 2010 disappearance of Babita Sarjou after skeletal remains were yesterday unearthed in a shallow grave at the residence of her estranged husband in Campbellville.

With a representative currently in Côte d’Ivoire to analyse the airport security systems there manned by a private firm, government says it continues to undertake due diligence as it mulls the privatisation of the security at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri.

A prisoner, who was hit with pellets in both eyes during unrest last month at the Camp Street Prison, is now blind and his mother is pleading for assistance to foot his medical bills.

Former president Donald Ramotar yesterday said that neither he nor the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) was ever close to convicted cash smuggling pilot Khamraj Lall and that all meetings and dealings with him were strictly on a business level.

Newly-elected City Hall councillor, James Samuels turns 90 tomorrow and says he is shocked that most people have focused on his age instead of what he can bring to making his constituency and by extension the country better.

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday challenged Finance Minister Winston Jordan to disclose the total savings to the economy from the collapse in oil prices, while arguing that the windfall could help finance significant pay hikes for public servants.

Starting today and ending next Saturday, minibus operators engaged in public transport will pay a fee of $200 per day to use the city’s minibus parks.

“Think of this: You in a deep sleep, curl up, dreaming all kinda story and then ‘bloosh,’ water splashing like mad on you.

Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday blasted government’s proposed $230B national budget, saying that it offered negligible tax relief for the average person and that the planned banning of used tyres and other measures will hit the poor.