GOVERNMENT has decided to withdraw its execution of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Chief Executive Officer of Natural Global Guyana Inc., Mr. Mohammed Osman, for recycling services in the country. Cabinet had signed the deal on November 11, with the environmentally friendly company to establish Guyana’s first recycling plant. But Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon announced the withdrawal yesterday at his weekly post-Cabinet media briefing in Office of the President, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown.

He said Cabinet’s decision came in the wake of the media revelations.
“With the withdrawal of Cabinet’s agreement with the form of the MOU, the work leading to a possible investment agreement is now abandoned,” Luncheon explained.
Meanwhile, he pointed out that an MOU by no means translates to an agreement or a project approval.
“The due diligence, I would be the first to concede, did not attract the same level of due diligence as it would have had it been for the execution of a contract. So a number of areas were inadequately attended to and the revelations in the media pointed this out, rather forcibly, for the attention not only of Cabinet but for the Guyanese people,” Luncheon revealed.
He added that the MOU, not being an agreement executing a contract between a firm and the government, did not, in any way, call for the Administration to provide tax breaks, tax holidays, the usual demands or inclusions, when contracts are being entered into with firms to provide services or to invest in Guyana.

Any obligations
The MOU did not outline, on the part of the firm and its principals, any obligations or undertakings by the Government or the State to be a provider of the commonly required benefits that other investors would require.

“So we didn’t have to offer, or we weren’t asked about tax breaks, holidays and such like,” said Luncheon.
Natural Global Guyana Inc. had already made a proto-type factory to address and manage Guyana’s solid waste and Osman expressed hope that the project would have sensitised the general public into being environmentally conscious.
He had said the company was expected to provide employment for Guyanese by applying an 85 to 15 percent rule to promote the transfer of knowledge that is 85 percent of the employees would have been Guyanese and the other 15 percent foreign engineers.
Through the programme, five transport stations could have been established to enable local communities to have easy access for the disposal of their garbage.
Natural Global was one of nine companies that submitted proposals to the Government of Guyana and it took a little more than 12 months for each proposal to be reviewed, along with extensive research on all the companies, before Natural Global was given the nod.
The company remanufactures materials from non-degradable waste, including such as coconut shells and branches collected from yards.
It had proposed to operate in Region 4 (Demerara/Mahaica) implementing a collection programme, issuing bins to educate the general public on utilising them for recycling as well.