Two members of the joint committee on bauxite resuscitation are urging President Bharrat Jagdeo to convene a promised meeting of the committee to look at the final report on the Alcoa concept paper on Bermine.

Dismissing comments made by President Jagdeo on Friday, co-chair Prof Clive Thomas that the committee had gone about its work with the desired urgency and in turn accused the President of failing to arrange a meeting with Robeson Benn, the other co-chair of the committee. Thomas, Lance Carberry and Claude Saul had submitted one report on the Alcoa concept paper and another was to have been submitted by Benn and the other members of the committee. Prof Thomas said that up to now he was still to learn if that report was submitted.

At a press conference on Friday, President Jagdeo accused the committee, set up in May, of not carrying out its work with the desired urgency. It was a charge he had made on previous occasions. President Jagdeo also accused the non-government members of the committee of seeking a way to disengage from the situation at Aroaima. He claimed that some members of the committee had expressed the view that Alcoa would not walk away from its investment in Aroaima and now that it had, they had no proposals to deal with the consequences.

The committee last met in August prior to the meeting at which the Aroaima shareholders were to decide whether or not the company would continue in operation after December 31.

Asked about the committee's recommendations for the Berbice Mining Company (Bermine), Prof Thomas said that the committee was to meet shortly to consider the proposal for restructuring the Bermine operation from the Bermine Employees Group.

The proposal by the Bermine employees is an alternative to that contained in the Alcoa Concept Paper, which called for Bermine's Everton operations to be closed down and for its operations at Kwakwani to be merged with the Alcoa/Guyana government operations at Aroaima. Under the Alcoa arrangement, the US$60 million debt owed by Aroaima to Alcoa would be converted into equity in a new company to be formed to manage the merged operations.

The Bermine employees' proposal calls for, among other things, the government to sell its shares to the employees; financing by a strategic investor, which would allow for the acquisition of equipment in return for the right to purchase all of Bermine's production; and to make available to Aroaima sufficient bauxite to sustain a 15-year project on terms to be negotiated.

Thomas said too that the committee had done some work at Linmine but its evaluation of the situation there had not been completed.

Carberry told Stabroek News that the committee had met the Linmine management and staff as well as the residents at Ituni. It is still to meet with the residents at Linden.

Carberry said that the committee had concentrated on completing its recommendations on the Alcoa concept paper which it had been given a month to do. That deadline was met, but a lack of consensus resulted in two reports being submitted.

Carberry said Benn's constant unavailability because of his commitments as a director of Aroaima was frustrating the work of the committee. A meeting fixed for this week to look at the Bermine proposal was unlikely to take place as Benn was attending a conference on oil exploration in the Caribbean, in Trinidad and Tobago.

Besides, Thomas, Benn, Carberry and Saul, the other members of the committee established in May are Ron Webster and Presidential Adviser on Empowerment, Odinga Lumumba. Stabroek News was unable to reach Webster, Lumumba or Saul for their comments.