Ogle airport shuts down to accommodate President’s Berbice flight

…arriving flights asked to ‘circle’ city until Granger’s departure
…NA placed under unprecedented lockdown

Planes arriving at the Eugene F Correia International Airport, Ogle, East Coast Demerara (ECD), were reportedly told to “circle” Georgetown on Friday afternoon, to accommodate President David Granger, who was travelling via air from Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).

In one instance, a Trans Guyana Airways flight arriving from Karasabai, South Pakaraima, Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo), had to fly around the city several times since the pilot was told that he could not land the aircraft until the Head of State’s flight takes off.
A passenger in one of the flights that were asked to “circle” the city said that the pilot notified those on the flight of the delay.
It is unclear as to how many flights and passengers were delayed in order to accommodate the President’s flight.
Several calls made to Eugene F Correia International Airport went unanswered. The situation was no different with Trans Guyana Airways. However, an employee at the airport told this newspaper that it is a Standard Operating Procedure to put flights on hold when the Head of State is leaving via the airport. He said that he cannot confirm that was the case on Friday evening but he also knows that there can be technical issues that may cause air traffic controllers to ask pilots of incoming flights to “circle” the city.

NA lockdown

Meanwhile, in New Amsterdam, some residents and commuters were annoyed that they were inconviemnce to accommodate the president at the opening of NA Town Week 2019.
According to residents, barricades were placed to keep out persons who may wantto protest against president. However, some reisdents were furious at the security checks they had to undergo as they made their way in and out of the area where the event was being hosted.

Abusing authority
Only on Thursday Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, during his weekly press conference called out the APNU/AFC Government, specifically President Granger, for what he described as abusing its limited authority when travelling locally in relation to security detail.

“Not just him, we have spent tens of millions to equip Ministers’ vehicles with sirens now. Under the PPP, it was the President, the Prime Minister, and possibly occasionally the Minister of Home Affairs who used to use sirens occasionally. Now, I have seen cases where some of the most junior Ministers, their vehicles were equipped with millions of dollars to use sirens, 27 of them now we have forcing people off the road etc,” Jagdeo contended.
He also noted that the President’s entourage with security detail must be proportionate to a threat against his life and large numbers of security officers, especially policemen, are being pulled from serving the public as mandated to provide services to the Administration instead.
“You have at any given moment nine vehicles in the President’s entourage and also outriders, we [PPP] never used outriders for the President, they [APNU/AFC] have a series of outriders now too on motorcycles stopping people etc. And so all of this is a distraction, it takes away valuable resources from the Police Force. Compounding that, every time the President travels now, not only does he have the Tactical Services Unit (TSU) but like those ordinary ranks, but they also have to place policemen sometimes at every junction to prevent or to control the flow of traffic,” he added.