jud lohmeyer full interview with stabroek news

below is full text of q&a jud lohmeyer had with mark mcgowan of stabroek news.

Could you kindly respond to the following questions:

(1) Could you say how Huawei got the contract to lay the fibre-optic cables? To your knowledge, was the contract awarded through a competitive bidding process?

The Hauwei contract is a sole source contract. GoG did not go to public tender for the project. No other providers were engaged to develop the project.

(b) You said that the US$50,000 gift raised “ethical” questions yet you admitted that you advised using the money to purchase the initial 142 netbooks for the project. Given you had concerns about the ethics of this donation, did you have any reservations about using the money to buy computers for the OLPF?

I believed the best use of the “gift” was in support of a public social project. 140 Guyanese families received a Lenovo laptop. Huawei had intended to give HE 50 high value laptops for HE to distribute to whom ever HE choose. I believed the use of the improper “gift” could be put to good use by Guyanese citizens and proposed directing the laptops to local teens in the OLPF three pilot projects.

(2) In your interview with Benschop, you mentioned that your vision of the OLPF project was adding a laptop component to various projects already in place. Could you expand on this please, especially explaining how this would have worked within the context of a OLPF initiative.

The single largest means of distributing laptops within OLPF was through the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports summer camps. I was preparing to execute the delivery of 12,000 laptops during the 2011 CYS summer camps across the country. We were coordinating with the Ministry of Eduction to hold summer camps in communities that would have ICT labs in their local schools by next September. Students in those schools would be contacted this last February and invited to participate in the CYS summer camp of which one of the sessions each day would be a OLPF laptop training session.

To participate in the OLPF summer camps students would need to maintain passing grades, maintain acceptable attendance in classes and provide some number of hours of community service during the February to June time-frame. Students that arrived at CYS summer camp meeting these requirements would participate in the OLPF laptop training and receive a laptop for their family to keep at the end of the summer camp. These students would then return to classes in September to a school with a ICT lab. These students would now be prepared to learn advanced business productivity applications found in Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Access and Power Point. I recommended to MOE that they start requiring students with laptops to turn in their assignment typed and spell checked possibly through e mail.

This is the central leverage that the original OLPF plan utilized to reduce project costs and utilize existing projects and management. I have attached the original project plan framework for your review.

q &a with another stabroek news reporter

Re our IM chat:,
What do you know about the third term ramblings for Jagdeo? What did this entail? And who was pushing this agenda?

It is a common conversation of speculation within the OP and with close advisors of HE that he fully intends to see through all of the projects underway. When chatting with group of six insider Brian Yong, Brian made clear with a wink and nod that HE will be in power in the years to come.

Most of the speculation is around following the Russian Putin model. HE will select a weak figure head to lead the PPP ticket. The newly elected President will replace Prime Minister for life Sam Hinds with Jagdeo. Its clean, no constitutional issues, Jagdeo Inc. continues to run Guyana. HE’s close associates in Suriname and Venezuela offer other alternatives to life time authoritarian presidencies.

Could you say of to how recent these “talks” about a third term were circulating in OP?

No one was concerned that projects started so late in HE’s final term of office would end because of a change in President. No close advisors or other officials are preparing for a lame duck period prior to elections. Everyone seems quite confident that things will remain in tact going forward for the foreseeable future.

Could you please elaborate on this whole Chinese immigration policy? The announcement seemed abrupt and caught us all by surprise.

I believe the sudden interest and support for Chinese nations can be traced back to loans from the Chinese government and changes in Guyana’s demographic make up. A number of loans from the Chinese government are referred to within the OP as no-pay back loans. It is what it sounds like, the Chinese grant Guyana development loans that the GoG is not required to repay.

One can surmise that these “loans” are China’s form of foreign aid. When the US, EU or European nations extend foreign aid to countries, there are agreements put in place about how the money will be used and other economic, development and good government clauses. The goal is to foster development and encourage transparent good government practices. The Chinese loans come with no such agreements. One is not exactly sure what the Chinese want in return for their “loans”. A quick review of Chinese loans to African nations might make Guyanese pause to consider the outcomes of Chinese investments in African nations. Human rights is not on the Chinese agenda, not in Africa or China. China is often sited as flagrant violator of human rights.

So who asked for the sudden granting of citizenship for Chinese nationals in Guyana? What’s in it for HE and the PPP. It has been reported that the demographic majority of Indo Guyanese over Afro Guyanese is reversing in the next few years. In the future race basing elections will not favor the PPP. A sudden increase in newly minted China Guyanese citizens could reverse this trend. There are not enough Chinese in Guyana today to impact the majority, only 2-3 percent of the population is Chinese, but there will be in a year or two. The Amaila Falls Hydro project will bring thousands of Chinese workers and their families to Guyana. China has a long history of influencing countries through immigration, much like Brazil. Enough new Chinese Guyanese citizens could easily add a major new swing vote. No longer with the Amerindians have such a powerful block if the Chinese Guyanese population grows to 10 percent or more. This all changes the election dynamics and maintains the race agitated election cycle long into the future. A tragic cycle recycled every election period pitting Guyanese against Guyanese to maintain the power structure.

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