{"id":41060,"date":"2017-09-22T08:17:24","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T12:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/?p=41060"},"modified":"2017-09-22T08:17:24","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T12:17:24","slug":"jagdeo-calls-for-patterson-to-be-fired-for-blatant-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/jagdeo-calls-for-patterson-to-be-fired-for-blatant-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Jagdeo calls for Patterson to be fired for \u2018blatant lies\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Opposition Leader Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has demanded that Head of State, David Granger immediately fire Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson over what he described as a repeated plethora of &#8220;blatant lies&#8221; in an attempt to defame the People\u2019s Progressive Party (PPP) and its approach to building a new Demerara River crossing.<br \/>\nJagdeo told reporters Minister Patterson had not only lied in his utterances with regard to him having doled out all of the Petroleum Blocks available for exploration, but in his pronouncements over the new crossing for the Demerara River.<\/h4>\n<figure id=\"attachment_41061\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41061\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-41061\" src=\"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/bharrat-jagdeo-300x232.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/bharrat-jagdeo-300x232.png 300w, https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/bharrat-jagdeo.png 700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-41061\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Opposition Leader,<br \/>Dr Bharrat Jagdeo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_41062\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41062\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-41062\" src=\"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/David-Patterson-1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/David-Patterson-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/David-Patterson-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/David-Patterson-1.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-41062\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Public Infrastructure Minister, David Patterson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4>\nSpeaking to the new river crossing, Minister Patterson during an Alliance For Change (AFC) press engagement this past week had insinuated that the Jagdeo-led Administration had not only gone to tender for a new bridge, but that he was peeved since the then favoured location would have seen his friend profiting.<br \/>\nJagdeo said that the PPP commissioned a pre-feasibility study in 2013 at a time when he had already left office and had, in fact, invited Expressions of Interest for three different locations, a clear testament to the fact that the Administration had not yet settled on a location for the construction of the new infrastructure.<br \/>\nJagdeo also spoke to Patterson\u2019s reaction to his prediction of impending acts of corruption through the award of Exploration Licences to be issued to companies currently applying that share close linkages \u2013 through complex shareholding structures \u2013 with Ministers of Government.<br \/>\nAccording to the Opposition Leader, the ploy employed by Patterson was, in fact, a strategy to deflect from the substance of the allegations laid in relation to the corrupt practices and focus attention on further misrepresentation of fact.<br \/>\nMisrepresentation, he said, is readily reported by the Kaieteur News, which the former President accused of being in the pockets of the regime as an outlet to peddle misinformation.<br \/>\nStill on the lies exhibited by Minister Patterson, Jagdeo drew reference to his assertions that the PPP\/Civic Administration under the former President had given out all the licences \u2013 information that could have readily been had since that is available at the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC).<br \/>\nSpeaking specifically to the coverage of what he deemed as \u201cfake news\u201d being provided by the outlined news outfit, Jagdeo drew reference to the fact that when Patterson\u2019s lies had been exposed using maps and information supplied by the GGMC, this was carried by all of the media houses except the Kaieteur News.<br \/>\nIn his criticisms, Jagdeo noted that although the news outfit was provided with a copy of the map showing the available blocks, this was not represented.<br \/>\nHe expanded by saying that with the perception being peddled by Minister Patterson that all the oil blocks had been given out, the Administration can secretly enter into deals for the remaining blocks since the impression given by Patterson is that there are no available petroleum blocks.<br \/>\nAccording to Jagdeo, \u201cthis Minister should be fired for lying\u2026what Patterson said at that press conference is a lie and no amount of obfuscation, no amount of the Kaieteur News\u2019 lies that they keep peddling and the fake news can change that fact.\u201d<br \/>\nHaving established that Patterson had lied on the matters related to the petroleum blocks, the Opposition Leader also called out the Minister over his misrepresentations on the proposed bridge across the Demerara River.<br \/>\nIn seeking to debunk the assertions made by Patterson, the former President drew reference to a document which the Minister had displayed at his press conference purportedly requesting in excess of G$100 million in order to fund a pre-feasibility study.<br \/>\nAccording to Jagdeo, that study commissioned by the PPP in 2013 after his tenure in office, in fact, cost just over G$5 million, a far cry from the more than G$150 million the coalition paid for a substantive study.<br \/>\nThe former President was adamant that following their pre-feasibility study in 2013, the Government then tested the market by inviting Expressions of Interest (EoI) specifying the three locations that had been identified.<br \/>\nJagdeo said Minister Patterson needs to understand the concept of testing the market and pointed out if the then Government had already made a decision on the Houston-Versailles location, it would not have issued an EoI request in the latter part of 2013 identifying the three possible sites that were proposed in the pre-feasibility study.<br \/>\nJagdeo told media operatives that when the matter was first raised by the PPP\/C, the questions related to the proposed financing structure, possible subsidies, Government guarantees and toll increases \u2013 questions he said Patterson is yet to answer.<br \/>\nHe pointed to the study conducted by Government which indicated various options for tolls and subsidies.<br \/>\nAccording to Jagdeo, the PPP\/C is merely seeking to solicit answers to questions from Government on the likely increases in tolls, subsidies and debt guarantees to be borne by the State among other uncertainties.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opposition Leader Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has demanded that Head of State, David Granger immediately fire Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson over what he described as a repeated plethora of &#8220;blatant lies&#8221; in an attempt to defame the People\u2019s Progressive Party (PPP) and its approach to building a new Demerara River crossing. Jagdeo told reporters Minister Patterson had not only lied in his utterances with regard to him having doled out all of the Petroleum Blocks available for exploration, but in his pronouncements over the new crossing for the Demerara River.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":41061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/bharrat-jagdeo.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41063,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41060\/revisions\/41063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}