Ownership of Linden Consumer Complex under scrutiny
-as Cambior deal nears
Stabroek News
November 5, 2002
The issue of who owns the Consumer Complex at Linden will have to be cleared up by the time the government finalises the privatisation deal for Linmine.
The government and the Canadian Mining Company, Cambior are very near terms that would allow the Canadian company to acquire 80 per cent of Linmine. In anticipation of the deal, the Government and the bauxite unions have finalised the separation packages for the company’s near 1200 workers.
The decision to establish the complex, according to Haslyn Parris, who at that time was Chief Executive Officer of the then Guyana Bauxite Company (Guybau) was part of a wages agreement reached with the Guyana Mine Workers Union in the mid-70s.
The objective of the complex was to provide the bauxite workers with goods at reasonable prices. He explained that as the wages of the workers were increased the merchants in the area increased their prices.
Parris said the agreement reached with the union provided for the company to pay the salary of the manager, and the salary of the other staff was to be paid from the revenue generated by the operations. He said the company also funded the construction of the building in which the complex is presently housed.
Desmond Moffet, at one time a president of the Mineworkers Union, told Stabroek News that the complex was originally established at the Linden Recreation Centre before moving to its present location. As he remembers it, the company provided the funding for the building and the union was required to make a token contribution. According to him, the cost of the building was to be met from the profits over time from the operations. He recalls that a board comprising representatives of the union and the company supervised the complex. He was at one time a member of the board.
Moffet confirmed that the objective of establishing the consumer complex was to provide goods at reasonable prices to the bauxite workers but said that it was never really achieved.
He said too that the restriction on the importation of goods also hampered the ability of the complex to provide the goods needed by the workers.
Moffett recalled too that when the Australian firm Minproc took over the management of Linmine, all the non-core bauxite activities of the two companies which were formed from the split up of the Guyana Mining Enterprise - the other was Bermine- were hived off and the running of the complex was passed over to the Mineworkers Union. He said that the union had no experience in managing the building and so looked for someone to manage it.
He said some discussions were started with Laparkan but these fell through and in 1993 parts of the building were in turn rented to Stan Smith, now the mayor of Linden, and then to Courts. At present there are a number of offices there, some rented by lawyers.
During the union’s stewardship, Moffett said that it advanced the management of the company $2.5 million but it is unclear what the money was to be used for and whether it was a loan or an investment. Stabroek News has approached the union for information about the complex, which it has promised to provide.