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Scrap Iron Dealers Association president Allan Ferguson. – File photo/Marvin Hamilton

SCRAP Iron Dealers Association president Allan Ferguson said the association had nothing to do with protests along the Solomon Hochoy Highway near Claxton Bay early on Monday morning.

Steel Workers Union president Timothy Bailey said the same on behalf of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM).

They made these statements at a news conference in Kelly Village on Monday, in response to comments the Prime Minister made earlier in a Facebook post.

Dr Rowley said, “So they have made their move. Dump truckloads of sand and debris on both sides of the highway and block traffic!

“What a wonderful idea of leadership from Roget and the followers including the UNC!

“The marauding gangs of metal thieves threatened to, but did not complete the job of shutting down the country, so the leaders are helping them to get that done.”

Ferguson said the association is not about shutting down the country.

“I am not a criminal.”

Ferguson also said he was not following anyone else’s agenda other than his association’s ongoing call to urge Government to lift its six-month ban on scrap-iron export.

While he controls some people affected by the ban, which is seen as tantamount to a closure of the industry, Ferguson admitted he does not have control over others.

Speaking on JTUM’s behalf, Bailey said, “We were not part of any action taken this morning.”

He reiterated a previous position stated publicly by JTUM president Ancel Roget that JTUM does not condone any illegal action, and its actions take place within the ambit of the law.

Bailey said he was appalled by Rowley’s post, and urged the PM to demonstrate more mature leadership.

“We can’t broad-brush everyone for the actions of a few.”

Ferguson also announced that on Friday, the association will stage a motorcade from the Caroni Bird Sanctuary at 10 am to Port of Spain, to continue its campaign for the industry’s reopening.

“Let them try to stop that.”

The association tried to stage a motorcade from the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba to Port of Spain on August 24 but was only given police permission to go as far as Barataria.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Maryland’s highest court has ruled that Washington, DC-area sniper Lee Boyd Malvo must be resentenced, because of US Supreme Court decisions relating to constitutional protections for juveniles made after Malvo was sentenced to six life sentences without the possibility of parole.

In its 4-3 ruling, however, the Maryland Court of Appeals said it’s very unlikely Malvo would ever be released from custody, because he is also serving separate life sentences for murders in Virginia.

“As a practical matter, this may be an academic question in Mr Malvo’s case, as he would first have to be granted parole in Virginia before his consecutive life sentences in Maryland even begin,” Judge Robert McDonald wrote in the majority opinion released Friday.

McDonald wrote that it’s ultimately not up to the Court of Appeals to decide the appropriate sentence for Malvo, or whether he should ever be released from his Maryland sentences.

“We hold only that the Eighth Amendment requires that he receive a new sentencing hearing at which the sentencing court, now cognizant of the principles elucidated by the Supreme Court, is able to consider whether or not he is constitutionally eligible for life without parole under those decisions,” McDonald wrote.

Malvo, 37, is now confined at the Red Onion State Prison in Virginia.

Malvo and his mentor, John Allen Muhammad, shot people in Virginia, Maryland and Washington as they pumped gas, loaded packages into their cars and went about their everyday business during a three-week period in 2002. Malvo was 17 at the time; Muhammad was 41.

Muhammad was sentenced to death and was executed in Virginia in 2009.

In Maryland, Malvo voluntarily testified against Muhammad. In 2006, Malvo pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder in Montgomery County in the suburbs of the nation’s capital.

At his sentencing that year, the prosecutor stated that Malvo, once under the sway of an “evil man”, had changed and “grown tremendously” since his participation in the crimes, according to the Court of Appeals ruling.

The ruling said Malvo’s sentence was “consistent with the pertinent State statute and with the advisory State sentencing guidelines at that time.”

“Since then, however, the Supreme Court has held that the Eighth Amendment does not permit a sentence of life without parole for a juvenile homicide offender if a sentencing court determines that the offender’s crime was the result of transient immaturity, as opposed to permanent incorrigibility,” the ruling said.

The ruling also noted that the Supreme Court has held that the legal constraint applies retroactively and applies to Malvo’s case.

Judges Jonathan Biran, Brynja Booth and Joseph Getty joined McDonald in the majority. Judges Shirley Watts, Michele Hotten and Steven Gould dissented.

Watts wrote that the sentencing court took Malvo’s status as a juvenile into account.

“The record demonstrates that Mr Malvo received a personalised sentencing procedure at which his youth and its attendant characteristics were considered, and the circuit court was aware that it had the discretion to impose a lesser sentence,” Watts wrote.

Hotten wrote that any alleged finding of corrigibility “did not render petitioner’s sentences unconstitutional disproportionate as applied”.

“Rather the proportionality of Petitioner’s sentences must be weighed against the severity of his crimes,” Hotten wrote. “Petitioner committed some of the worst crimes in the history of the State. It was not grossly disproportionate that a heavy penalty was imposed.”

By BRIAN WITTE

Associated Press

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Veteran broadcaster, Francois St Juste has died

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Two Chinese companies were the lone bidders for the contract to widen and upgrade various sections of the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) highway when the bids were opened at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).

The tenders were issued by the Public Works Ministry, for the ECD public road widening and improvement project; phase 2, from Annandale to Mahaica, and on the railway embankment from Sheriff Street to Orange Nassau.

China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), one of the Chinese companies that bid for the project, is no stranger to Guyana. They have been involved in projects in Guyana such as the upgrade works at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA).

It was only in July that CHEC completed extended works that were agreed upon with the Government at the CJIA, in keeping with the deadline of June 30. An extension to the structure will now enable larger aircraft to enter Guyana, creating additional benefits for travellers.

Back in April, Hadi’s World Incorporated, a subsidiary of Mohamed’s Enterprise, partnered with CHEC Guyana Inc to pursue its US$25 million quarry project to cater to the needs of the country’s booming construction sector.

The other Chinese company, China Railway First Group Company Limited, is also no stranger to Guyana, having been in talks with the Government since last year on the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project (AFHP), to construct it in a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) arrangement.

The State-owned Chinese company has been involved in the AFHP since 2008 when the initiative was first conceptualised under a previous People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration.

At that time, Sithe Global, a United States-based company, as the investor of the project and beneficiary of the concession rights, publicised the invitation to bid for the project across the globe in May 2008, and CRFG participated in the bidding process.

In November 2008, CRFG was announced the successful bidder for the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract of the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project, which was officially signed between CRFG and Sithe Global in September 2012.

But in August 2013, Sithe Global, due to the expiration of the concession rights for the project, exited the development of the Guyana Amaila Falls Hydropower Project, resulting in the project being set aside.

This year, some $49.2 billion was allocated for road works. Of this amount, money was set aside for the widening of the ECD highway from Annandale to Mahaica, as well as upgrading the railway embankment from Sheriff Street to Orange Nassau.

There is another contract, the redesign, and widening of the road from Belfield, ECD to Rosignol, West Coast Berbice (WCB), for which a total of 10 international and local contractors threw their hats in the ring.

The Belfield to Rosignol road widening was intended to be a continuation of the East Coast Road Widening and Expansion Project, which was commissioned in 2020. The US$50.2 million project was supposed to have two components: a four-lane expansion from Better Hope to Annandale, and an upgrade to the existing two-lane road from Annandale to Belfield.

Back in 2019, a grant of Kuwaiti Dinars (KD) 500,000 was approved by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development to conduct a technical and economic feasibility study for this very project – the redesign of the Belfield to Rosignol road network.

In 2016, the Government of Guyana and the People’s Republic of China had, through the China Export-Import Bank, signed a $9.6 billion (US$45.5 million) concessional loan for the completion of the widening of the road between Better Hope and Belfield. The Government had contributed approximately $3 billion towards the project.

Last year, it was announced that the Government had gotten approval from its counterparts in China to utilise the sums saved on the ECD road widening and improvement contract (when the road was commissioned, the cost at the time was US$43 million) to execute 24 additional connector roads linked to the project.

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