Prime Minister offers no apology
July 19, 2012 | By KNews | Filed Under News
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds last evening issued an official statement in response to the unrest in Linden where police shot and killed four persons and injured dozens but the more than 1,200 word statement failed to mention this.
According to Hinds in his statement issued last evening, “I was filled with great disappointment and deep regret on being informed about the blocking of the Bridge across the Demerara River at Linden, this morning, in protest against the programme of reform of the provision of electricity in Linden.”
He did concede that he was upset to hear that LUSCSL turned off the electricity supply to the Wismar/Christianburg area and, hence, the water supply also and called it, “plain thuggery upon captive consumers by a utility provider.”
Hinds in his statement documented that, “I regret greatly that demonstrators have succeeded in blocking the Demerara Bridge, and that a number of enterprises and persons in Linden have suspended their normal businesses and getting on with their lives.”
The Prime Minister sought to explain his deep regret for “this setback to all the work that the Government has been doing in advocating Linden as a place in which to be, and a place in which to do business; advocating and working to realize Linden as a gateway to, and from, Region Nine, and northern Brazil…All that work is now compromised and set back.”
The Prime Minister lamented, “All this at a time when, for the first time since ever there was bauxite-drying and calcining operations in Linden, there is a stack from a calciner that is free of dust—the first time in which there is demonstration that Linden can be dust-free whilst the bauxite operations are running.”
The Prime Minister in expressing his disgust with the action of the Lindeners yesterday said, “One of the earliest reports to Prime Minister about the blocking of the Mackenzie Bridge, was about someone from Lethem who had the job of taking some visiting missionaries, on an outreach assistance programme, to Lethem.”
The Prime Minister said that “the missionaries had landed at CJIA earlier in the morning, and were in a number of minibuses on the way to Lethem, through Linden, when they got word of the blocking of the Bridge, and were considering what they should do.”
Hinds in his statement urged “all those who are suffering losses by the wanton action of a dozen, or so, instigators, to consider taking them personally to court in order to seek compensatory damages.”
Hinds said that he regrets what several people of Linden have been made to believe of their condition and their treatment by the Government.
The Prime Minister declared that the new tariff structure has been structured, taking account of the call from opposition parties in Parliament that it be structured in such a way that the initial quantities of electricity taken, are heavily subsidized.
The Prime Minister added also that many things determine the material conditions at a location and further added that “Linden is no more depressed, no less depressed, no more prosperous, no less prosperous, than many other places in Guyana…I regret the action of those who have fomented the people, and urged the shutting down of Linden… This is harming all Guyana, in general, but the people of Linden, most of all.”
