President Ali must now know how Little Jack Horner felt when he put in his thumb and pulled out a plum!! The Pres was invited to India just to receive an award for being of Indian origin, and here he is, coming back with the highest number of business contracts even signed with any one country on any one occasion in the history of our country!! That’s a heck of a lot of plums pulled!!
Take the last one, where he’s allocating 200 acres to India for the production of the grain millet in this UN “International Year of Millet”. This is gonna be one of the most significant agricultural innovations, since this is one of the healthiest grains that’s poised to hit a health-conscious world!! But India aren’t going to just help with millet production; they’ll advise on sugar, coconut, and other crops that’ll be critical for us to help Caricom achieve reduction of our food imports by 25% by 2025!!
Then there was the offer to modernise our GDF!! While several GDF officers have been sent to India to receive training…no one expected the cooperation would extend into the aviation sector, which we so badly need to expand to cover our massive land space!! While the military-heavy Granger had spent a fortune for drones to do that job, there’s been an astounding silence about what happened to those drones!! Droning??
Then there’s the contract signed by the Guyana Manufacturers Assoc with NBR – a well-established manufacturer of a wide array of engine radiators, radiator core intercoolers and condensers, and engine coolant – to establish a factory in Guyana with a consortium of local businesses. At last, we’ll become part of a manufacturing supply chain – here engines. Another contract was signed for supplying technical manpower to our O&G sector – icing on the cake for India to get involved in the oil sector with increased long-term offtake, participation in exploration and production activities, technical cooperation in the midstream and downstream sectors, and capacity building! VP Jagdeo will be going over to India next month to consummate this deal with the largest importer of oil in the world!!
Our fledgling Guyana Power and Gas (GPG) also signed a deal for a consultancy with an experienced Indian company for our integrated NGL Plant and 300 MW CCGT Power Plant project at Wales. Our Go-Invest – tasked with bringing businesses to Guyana – also signed an agreement with Invest India, that are in the throes of consummating their long-sought desire to replace China as the world’s factory. Guyana can become part of the supply chain in that ecosystem by supplying intermediate goods, as countries like the Far Eastern Tigers did decades ago.
Jack Horner, move aside!! Pressie’s here!!
…to another in PNC
In a real-life drama playing out in the PNC right now, it seems that a whole lotta folks have a “Get Norton” idee fixe that’s coming to a boil in time for the PNC Congress in March (?)!! The latest one was revealed in a secret recording that came to your Eyewitness’s notice on Friday 13th!! Wasn’t a good omen!! Like that secret recording by two PNC operatives back in the day of the Agricola Killings – this one was of three top execs of the party who’re clearly recognised by their voices. They were discussing how to use the Treasurer’s claim of having to sign blank cheques to oust Norton.
But while that one was about a tragedy, this one ended in a farce. Imagine the fella making the potentially politically fatal accusation against Norton with the corrupt blank cheques’ accusation asking his co-conspirators to prepare the written accusation – which he would sign!!
He confessed he wasn’t capable of composing the missive!!
…to another tragedy
In the wake of the mega success of the Bio-pic of Elvis winning a Golden Globe best actor award came the news of Elvis’s daughter Priscilla – now 54 years old – dying from a heart attack.
It’s like a Faulkner tragedy.
