PRESIDENT Donald Ramotar has reiterated that the construction of the Marriott Hotel is necessary for the nation given the country’s potential for tourism.

He was at the time addressing a meeting last week at Cotton Tree, West Coast Berbice where he met with residents.
According to Mr. Ramotar there has been a concentrated effort by the Kaieteur News and Stabroek News along with others in sections of the society who have been trying and continue to mislead the nation about the benefits of the Marriott Hotel.
He stated that in both Barbados and Trinidad those countries have hotels which are being administrated by the state and in both cases the hotels are the classiest ones.
The Hyatt and Hilton hotels were pointed out by the Head of State that were built by the governments in those countries and are attracting tourists although none of the two countries have the tourism potential like Guyana.
With the potentials that Guyana has in tourism and the construction of the Marriott Hotel, there is no question or doubt that Guyana will see tourists increase.
With respect to oil exploration, President Ramotar said that once oil is discovered on these shores Guyana may not even have the capacity to accommodate the number of persons who will flock this country.
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government will not reduce itself to a short sighted one which will only run and build hotels and carry out other developmental works “when the tide is upon us” he stated.
In the past there have been many letters, newspaper headlines, protests and other actions and utterances put forward to play down the benefits of the Marriott Hotel in Guyana.
There were even cases where those who were opposed to the project began launching verbal and written attacks on the Chinese nationals working on the project.
However, when it reached to that stage the private sector, Government of Guyana and the Chinese Ambassador made it clear that the attacks on the nationals were unwarranted.
The Kaieteur and Stabroek News have fashioned and designed themselves to stem and prevent at all costs, development in Guyana President Ramotar told the residents on Friday.
He said that the Stabroek News is linked and has aligned itself with a class of people who former resident Dr. Cheddi Jagan had warned about while he was in opposition and even in government.
President Donald Ramotar described the class of people close to Stabroek News as persons who were very good with the old rich colonial persons and who made decisions at the Georgetown Club over bottles of whiskey. It is those same people who are today trying to regain their influence in this country and are even trying to push it as far as attempting to decide who should be the president of this land.
The persons who align themselves with the Kaieteur News are not very different, the President added. He said that the same things Stabroek News is trying to achieve are the things those at Kaieteur News are trying to achieve also.
Kaieteur News represents a class of people who got rich when things were bad in this country and who smuggled bread among other things into this country concealed in their suitcases.
Now those are the very persons who have a lot of money and anyone who chooses to walk along Regent and Robb Streets in Georgetown will be able to get the picture, the President stated.
During the days of trading it was those very persons who sold bora and other items on the black market. The problem with them however, according to the President is the fact that they have money but no political power and or influence and that is what drives the hatred against the government by the two newspapers, he asserted. Mr. Ramotar said that the two groups want to use the state and its resources to enrich themselves.