Vice-President Jagdeo says
VICE-PRESIDENT, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, on Thursday, lambasted the opposition for positions it took while in office from 2015-2020, which saw Afro-Guyanese contractors being deprived of opportunities they had prior to the APNU+AFC’s tenure in office.

Dr Jagdeo made those remarks during his press conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, on Thursday.
He said that in 2015, when the APNU+AFC coalition entered office, several contractors lost contracts that they previously had.
Dr. Jagdeo referenced one contractor, Courtney Benn Contracting Services that was at the time tendering for contracts and doing well in the Guyana up until 2015.
He said: “This is a black contractor complaining, imagine all of the bids only two companies bid; Afro-Guyanese companies… and the one that bid twice said after APNU came into office, I stopped getting work at GWI.”

The Vice-President said that the contractors related that they stopped getting work totally at that company. Courtney Benn Contracting Services is now working on a government contract which entails building a wharf.

He said that contractors indicated that under APNU’s tenure, most of them went bankrupt, so he challenged the party’s rhetoric of claiming to love afro-Guyanese.
“More [Afro-Guyanese] companies went bankrupt in the five years of APNU than any period in our history,” Dr. Jagdeo remarked.

Meanwhile, he added that under the previous administration, some 50 acres of land which Courtney Benn Contracting Services had procured was taken away and the owner of the company had not received any funds he paid for the land until the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) took office.

Against this backdrop, he added that while Afro-Guyanese businesses went bankrupt, many Indian businessmen were forced to carry bribes to the offices of ministers to receive contracts.

The Vice-President lamented that more was taken away from Afro-Guyanese and the people of Guyana than was given to them during the APNU+AFC’s stint in office.