Former CEO Dr. Van West-Charles rejects VP Jagdeo’s ethnicity claim on GWI 2015/2020 management

In his usual abusive style Jagdeo carped “just imagine out of all the bids only two Guyanese company bid, Afro Guyanese companies and the one that bid twice said after APNU came into office (he) stopped getting work at GWI.”

But Dr. Richard Van West-Charles, former Managing Director of GWI during October 2015 to August 2020, in an interview with Village Voice News recounted a different story.

According to Van West-Charles “no decision, which was made by me, was driven by any preference for any one of the ethnicities of Guyana.”

The former Managing Director, whose contract was not renewed by the PPP/C, said his “preeminent identity is Guyanese, and as the Managing Director, critical decisions of management were the quality of water and equity of access by the citizenry in Guyana.”

He reminded that “it is important to note that no contracts for well maintenance were awarded between 2016 and 2020.”

Van-West Charles further advised he had recused himself from direct involvement in the procurement process in 2016, by way of letter to former Finance Minister Winston Jordan.

Delving further into the management of the organisation, he shared that Benn “was a contractor with GWI in the area of well maintenance. Teams which included staff and contractors, of which one was Mr. Courtney Benn, were sent to Oklahoma and the Netherlands to improve the effectiveness of the systems related to the delivery of potable water across the country.”

He explained the new management team, during the APNU/AFC Government, commenced examining several issues directly related to the quality of water delivered to citizens and the efficiency and effectiveness of that delivery.

One of the issues, he said, “was the time taken for the maintenance of wells and its impact on the length of time citizens were without access to potable water.”

Van West-Charles said the duration for the maintenance of wells was approximately six weeks and outsourced. However, a decision was taken to affect the maintenance of wells as an in-house activity as a means of reducing the time and saving resources.

Additionally, equipment was bought specifically from the Netherlands to bring greater efficiency to the maintenance process and the equipment is presently in use.

The former managing director pointed out that in keeping with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), signed on to by the Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana on behalf of the People, “the purpose of the procurement process is to ensure fairness, justice and equity coupled with competitiveness, efficiency and effectiveness.”