Guyana Observer News

…claimed sugar was sold in a corrupt deal to Trinidad

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Donald Ramotar, has sued Parliamentarian, Khemraj Ramjattan, for $25M in damages following a November airing of a TV programme. According to Ramotar, a Director of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and whose name has surfaced as a Presidential candidate for the PPPC, Ramjattan, who is the Chairman for the Alliance For Change, appeared on November 21 on the DTV Channel 8 programme “Issues of the People” and made statements that Ramotar has found to be libelous. According to court documents, Ramotar claimed that the AFC official accused him of being corrupt by being involved in shady deals with GuySuCo to sell sugar to Trinidad. Yesterday, Judge William Ramlal granted injunctions barring the DTV 8 and Ramjattan from repeating the alleged libel and ordered the respondents to court to answer the allegations.

Police have surrounded Mark Benschop's house to arrest him for a minor traffice offence

 By Freddie Kissoon

In his column last Sunday, Adam Harris wrote the following; “Scarcely a day goes by without someone calling to ask me to help them with some issue….” Harris’s article was titled, “People are afraid even when they are right.” If I was doing that commentary, I would have captioned it, “People are afraid even when they were almost murdered.” I agree that given who he is, people come up to Harris everyday trying to get justice for the wrongs committed against them by powerful agents of the state. My life is the same and I can tell Adam Harris that it is not daily that I see someone who needs help. I also get numbers of complaints daily. People come to my home. People pull me over and tell me about the abuse they received. My phones ring all the time. The pattern is the same – please don’t mention my name; I am afraid. Growing up under the Burnham Government, I thought Guyanese were afraid of him. Let me say most evanescently – more Guyanese are afraid to speak out against dictatorship under the PPP than under the PNC. I have explained the reason for this irony. A brief repetition is in order.

Sixty-nine year-old Compton Paul of New Amsterdam, Berbice, appeared before acting Chief Magistrate Priya Beharry, yesterday, at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court, to answer to the charge of unlawful possession of a firearm. It is alleged that on Monday, last, the accused had in his possession one Winchester 12 Gauge shotgun, without being the holder of a shotgun licence. The defendant, who was represented by attorney at law Michael Somersall, pleaded not guilty to the charge. The lawyer in a bail application told the court that his client is an overseas-based citizen. He said that the defendant is a farmer and is currently a holder of a shotgun licence.

An onslaught of garbage is anticipated at Le Repentir Cemetery as Christmas-related activities intensify in the city and further afield. This is according to City Mayor Hamilton Green who told a press conference Monday that all evidence suggests that the dumpsite is already being flooded with additional waste from the East Bank and East Coast of Demerara and the West Bank and West Coast of Demerara. The dumpsite he said ought to have been closed years ago but is still open through no fault of the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown. Director of Solid Waste Management, Hubert Urlin, said Monday that during the Christmas period there is usually a 20 to 25 percent increase in the quantity of waste received, over and above the annual average. He disclosed that measures were put in place to increase the amount of equipment available at the site in terms of bulldozers to be able to push the waste for a couple of hundred feet in order to have it reasonably accommodated at the site. However work in this regard, Urlin said, remains a challenge.