– again accuses Ramotar of corruption, cronyism

CONTROVERSIAL mega contractor Brian Tiwarie on Saturday insisted the only reason he claimed to be a “born PPP” was to placate former President Donald Ramotar who was annoyed that he had used the same plane to take him to Essequibo and to also transport officials of the then opposition APNU+AFC.Ramotar Friday released the letter from Tiwarie in which he (Tiwarie) had pledged continued allegiance and support to the PPP a mere two months from the last general elections. The release of the letter was a response to Tiwarie’s claim that he had joined the movement to oust the PPP from office one year before the May, 2016 general elections.
Following Ramotar’s release of his letter, Tiwarie, who heads BK International and its airline arm Jags Aviation, suggested that he was afraid of victimisation by Ramotar and renewed his call for the ex-President to respond to allegations of corruption and cronyism during his presidency.
In another letter to the press, Tiwarie said he had incurred former President Ramotar’s wrath when his domestic airline made a decision to transport then-Opposition members by plane to Georgetown from an area in Essequibo which Ramotar had visited.
The businessman recounted that the incident happened during the 2015 elections campaign when Ramotar was slated to conduct election activities in the Essequibo region using a chartered flight from Tiwarie’s airline, then housed at the GUYSUCO hangar of what is now the Eugene F. Correia International Airport.
Tiwarie said a team from the then opposition APNU+AFC had used his airline to fly into the same region.
“Our aviation consultant at the time, Mr. Bobby Vieira, had called and informed me that the company had provided a flight to the same area, a day before, comprising a team of APNU+AFC campaign officials headed by Mr. Raphael Trotman,” Tiwarie’s letter read.
Tiwarie said Trotman’s team was scheduled to return to Georgetown the very morning Mr Ramotar and team went into the region. “It would have been much more economical for the aircraft taking in the then President [as this was a one-way charter] to ferry Mr. Trotman and his team back to Georgetown.”
The BK boss said this action had “Annoyed the former President which he displayed on several occasions later.” Acting on advice from a senior government official in Ramotar’s administration at the time, Tiwarie was advised to “write and offer an apology for any discomfort we may have caused him.”
The businessman said they had even waived former President Ramotar’s fee for the one-way charter to Essequibo.
In the letter, which was dated two months before the general elections which ousted Ramotar’s government from office, Tiwarie aggressively pledged his allegiance to the PPP amidst allegations that he was supportive of the then David Granger-led political opposition.
But the March 2015 letter, according to Tiwarie, was not enough to “quell the anger of Mr. Ramotar. His rant continued with threats to evict my airline operations from the GUYSUCO hangar where we were conducting our operations.”
Tiwarie said his business never discriminated against political parties, but continued to be relegated by then President Ramotar for allegedly boosting the Opposition coalition with millions of dollars in contributions.
Tiwarie has since professed a shift in his allegiance from the PPP, now in opposition, to the APNU+AFC, now in government. “It is one’s democratic right to choose his/her political direction. Tiwarie spared no bones defending his “support for change” in the 2015 elections as he said this was wanted by most Guyanese.
Turning his attention to recent unanswered allegations whereby the businessman alleged that Ramotar had gifted State assets to his relatives, Tiwarie took Ramotar to task for not responding to the allegations but instead taking “a low-blow by creating a smoke screen, by publishing a private correspondence to him.”
While Ramotar has lobbed allegations that Tiwarie had acquired $800M in steel from the troubled Specialty Hospital project in Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Tiwarie is pushing for the ex-President to answer questions that State assets were sold at “under-value” prices to his relatives.
Mr Tiwarie claimed that a barge, valued at over US$1M was resold to Ramotar’s relative for a paltry G$3M.
“Let us deal with the issues at hand. I challenge Mr. Ramotar to refute this,” Tiwarie stated.
He further challenged the former President to refute charges that despite the fact the Aremu Interior Road project was awarded to BK International, it was “gifted” to another company.
“Strangely, Mr Ramotar personally and genuinely advised me to sue his government over this injustice,” Tiwarie’s letter said.