Rowley hits the road in campaign against scrapping of smelter

Keith Rowley is heading to La Brea Saturday evening to tell the people there what he thinks about the new People's Partnership government's plan to scrap the smelter that the Manning government was building in their community.

The opposition leader is carrying the message that the move is a bad one for the community, the country and the country's international image.

Finance Minister Winsston Dookeran announced in his budget presentation on September 8 that the government would scrap the smelter project and advised that the energy minister would provide details of an alternative plan.

Speaking in the Senate this week the energy minister, Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan, said plastics and glass manufacturing plants are likely to replace the scrapped aluminium smelter plant at La Brea.

She explained that the country's High Court had stopped the billion-dollar project before the new government took office. 

The court quashed the Certificate of Environment Clearance, which was given by the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) and the Manning government had decided not to proceed with the project until the matter was resolved in the courts.

Seepersad-Bachan told legislators even if the court had ruled in favour of the smelter project, the cost would have been too high to make the project sustainable. “It does not make economic sense,” Seepersad-Bachan said.

She said plants to manufacture inorganic chemicals, glass, alternative energy-industry plastics and agro-businesses are likely to be put on the La Brea site.

“We are in the process of preparing a request for proposals. We are presently reviewing for an anchor project that will allow for maximisation of the existing Union Estate,” she added.

The Energy Minister told the Senate prospective candidates for the plastics project and an integrated complex for a world-scale manufacture of glass and photovoltaic cells have been identified.

With regard to cost, she said the plastics project would require an investment of US$2 billion and the integrated glass and photovoltaic cells project, which requires the importation of silica from Guyana, would require a capital investment of US$2.5 billion.

“The alternative energy industry is a growing industry. It is close to US$100 billion now and it is expected that the cost of solar panel will be able — in three years — to meet the cost of conventional energy supplies,” Seepersad-Bachan said.

She noted there would be a “big market” for those products. She said it also would create “significant employment” for nationals.

The MP for the area, Fitzgerald Jeffery, does not support the alternative plan. And the opposition member denies that the project planned by the new government would provide enough jobs, saying a plastics plant would only create 14 jobs while the smelter would have provided work for 775 people.

“Is La Brea going to be a dumping ground? I am not in favour of the glass and plastics plant at all,” Jeffrey told local media.