Queens Atlantic refutes KN’s GWI well falsehoods

The Guyana Water Inc (GWI) headed by Dr Richard Van West-Charles has retaliated against Guyana Times and the Queen’s Atlantic Investment Inc (QAII) and launched an investigation into the water supplies for the Sanata Complex on the very day that Guyana Times published an exposé on the fuel licence that had been acquired by Dr Van West-Charles.

GWI CEO, Dr Richard Van West-Charles
GWI CEO, Dr Richard Van West-Charles

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Chairman of QAII Dr Ranjisinghi “Bobby” Ramroop on Friday drew attention to the GWI investigation, even as it refutes even more inaccurate information spewed by Kaieteur News as it attempted to malign the operations of QAII, suggesting some form of illegality with respect to a well in its compound.
QAII has since released a public statement where it publicly notes “that GWI staff only showed up and sought to interrogate QAII employees on the day that a QAII related company, Guyana Times, broke the story identifying that the GWI CEO was granted a licence to import and export fuel.”
QAII said it can only assume this action was in retaliation to the article carried by its newspaper, Guyana Times in its August 17, 2016, edition.
Meanwhile, as it relates to the misleading Kaieteur News article, QAII says that the well in question is in fact wholly owned by QAII and GWI nor its predecessor companies has never owned the well.
In fact, QAII said, “Like many industrial operations, large complexes have their own well and operate these independently of GWI… QAII has always sought to be a good citizen and has maintained that there is an arrangement where the water from the well can be accessed for GWI usage.”
QAII was at the time responding to the continued spate of malicious accusations being levelled by Kaieteur News.
QAII said it refutes in its entirety the claims made by Kaieteur News that it owes the State-owned GWI millions of dollars in water bills.
According to QAII, “it is not and never was a customer of GWI.”
A report in Friday’s edition of the Kaieteur News, under the caption ‘No evidence that Ramroop Ruimveldt Complex is a GWI customer’, went on to claim that the State-owned GWI has started investigations on the Ruimveldt property owned and controlled by Dr Ramroop.
QAII has since responded to the erroneous publication in Kaieteur News to say that it owns the well that GWI is purportedly investigating and has disclosed too that “Security, rates and taxes, etc for the entire Sanata operations are borne solely by QAII.”
According to the QAII statement, “Over the years, the well and the environs have always been recognised as being under private ownership, and are currently owned by QAII… QAII said it will continue to pursue a good relationship with GWI for shared access to the water resources of the well.”
QAII sought to point out too that its water use is not commercial and is in fact insignificant. “In fact, most of the water is being used by GWI… and for the record, QAII said it has never been a customer of GWI at this location, given that QAII is accessing water from its own well.”
Dr Ramroop’s QAII said it remains committed to being a good corporate citizen and will seek to continue to support GWI on its use of the well.
Additionally, in refuting the continued spate of falsehoods emanating from the Kaieteur News, QAII responded too to the allegation that Government spent some US$5 million to rehabilitate the Sanata Textiles Complex before it was sold to QAII at a cost of US$3.4 million was repeated.
QAII Executive Chairman, Dr Ramroop, has maintained that the information being published by the Kaieteur News is “inaccurate and false”. “I want to state categorically that after the lease, the Government of Guyana did not spend a single cent on the clean-up or any other expense that went into rehabilitating or reconstruction of any of the buildings,” Dr Ramroop declared.
He explained that Kaieteur News has been peddling the lie that millions were spent since 2008 when Guyana Times newspaper was launched.
“The fact is all repairs, rehabilitation and other works were done by the QAII Group to the tune of millions of dollars, after acquisition of the lease as the Complex at the time of privatisation was in a state of disrepair.”