KEITH Burrowes recently made the following public statements to the media:

“I am not politically aligned; Governments over the years thought that I was competent for the job, and I have succeeded always.”

Mr. Burrowes was appointed Advisor to President Ramotar in 2012; his service was pro bono, and he remained in that post. He was Chairman of the Guyana Chronicle, Director at GuySuCo, and headed the tender committee. These appointments will never be given to someone who is not politically aligned to the PPP. Now, if you consider these appointments and the performance of the Chronicle, Go Invest and GuySuCo, you the readers must decide whether or not Burrowes is politically aligned and competent.

My reason for this public outburst is that it seems as if witch-hunting is synonymous with masking justice to the oppressed and wronged, defending incompetence, condoning corruption, and allowing the wizards or witches to find new brooms to fly on in the new Administration.

In 2012, Burrowes was the Chairman of the GuySuCo Tender Board; he subverted the tendering process on instructions from then Minister Robert Persaud to not award a contract legitimately evaluated in ECI’s favour.

The contract was awarded to a supplier that did not bid nor meet the tender requirements. This contract was more than one year late, with no penalty to the supplier, while the cane harvest suffered.
Having worked 23 years with contracts for GuySuCo, it was one of the few tender processes in the PPP Administration that was not corrupted; this came to an end with Robert Persaud as Minister, and Burrowes as Chairman of the Tender Board.

In 2013, we were requested to attend a meeting with Burrowes by GuySuCo. The first appointment was a no-show by him.
We met to discuss an engagement with GuySuCo to build a critical component of the Skekdon 2 factory Punt Dumper in order to start the next grinding for sugar production. Burrowes’s involvement was the authority, as Chairman of GuySuCo Tender Board, to negotiate and award the contract. This was necessary, since the contractor GuySuCo selected in the previous tender process was unable to do the project.

The project was completed and worked successfully; GuySuCo accepted. We were informed that all payments in this project were suspended; then our Bank informed us that GuySuCo is demanding the 10% Performance Bond. We successfully obtained injunctions against the Bank, preventing them from paying the bond, and against GuySuCo from using the equipment they acquired by false pretense, which constituted a fraud. GuySuCo settled by requesting the litigation suspended, and made full payment to us.

About that time, I had a letter published in the press about Alexie Ramotar and the massive failure of the E- Governance and the Fibre Optics project. Mind you, this was in 2013; Keith Burrowes was Advisor to The President.

I was reliably informed that instructions by GuySuCo Chairman Raj Singh were given to the Board of GuySuCo, Tender Committee Chairman, and Board member, Burrowes, and management on the non-payment, and calling the Performance Bond. The reason was victimisation for writing the letter about the failed Fibre Optics project and Alexie Ramotar, the President‘s son, and the plans for Burrowes to turn a blind eye on projects that are required to be handled by this agency.

This is my reason to witch-hunt Keith Burrowes; he is a very public person with unlimited access to the Chronicle. This Administration must decide whether he could have done all this without alliance to the PPP Administration.
SAMUEL BARAKAT