By Lesroy W. Williams Observer Reporter
” (Basseterre, St. Kitts)-Prime Minister Denzil Douglas went on the attack in an incendiary rebuttal of statements made by Lindsay Grant, the leader of the People’s Action Movement,” who said the Mirrlees MB430 Engines damaged in the recent Needsmust Power Plant fire were prototypes. Mr. Grant, in a written statement following the electricity accident, said that the government had purchased generators for over $30 million that were no good and for which the citizens and residents of St. Kitts are now paying dearly.””” “The inevitable has happened. We have constantly and consistently warned the public about the prototype generators that were purchased for over 30 million dollars and were no good. Now we are hurting because of the irresponsible spending of taxpayers” money on faulty generators. For the mistake of the government led by Denzil Douglas we the taxpayers now have to pay. We have to pay because we are left without a constant supply of a basic necessity in addition to the fact that significant sums of our tax paying dollars now have to be spent to right the wrong,” Mr. Grant said. Thursday Online Code for Issue # 730 is PSI MAN Diesel’s Representative, Mr. Terrence Burns, who is a consultant working at the power plant since the electricity tragedy, discredited Mr. Grant’s claims that the Mirrlees MB430 engines were prototypes.” The Mirrlees engines are one of the “most successful medium speed 720RPM engines ever built,” Mr. Burns said. “So the suggestion that these were prototypes is not correct.” Prime Minister Douglas has added his two cents to Mr. Burns’s dismissal of Mr. Grant’s claim.” “While I speak of those who have called in and have complimented and commended openly the firemen and those who are working at the plant, working 24 hours a day”what do we have from an irresponsible opposition party called PAM? A statement being made by Mr. Lindsay Grant, maliciously accusing people of the electricity department past and present of all kinds of nonsense,” the Prime Minister said in Parliament when he updated the country on the current electricity situation. “People who have spent their time and professional expertise to work with the ministry and government to order appropriate generators back in 1999, he (Lindsay Grant) continues to make malicious statements only intended to damage the reputation and the good name of this country to the outside world,” Dr. Douglas said. “And this kind of irresponsible statement from the leader of PAM must not continue.” “People risk their lives, people have been working hard, but what can we have from an irresponsible opposition party in this country? Nothing but malice, nothing but abuse, nothing but discourtesy” and all kinds of ridiculous statements and fabrications that we have been hearing from this gentleman,” Dr. Douglas said. “Instead at this critical time when we should be trying to embrace the work that is being done by our electricity department to return this country to a state of normalcy with reliable energy supply, we have an opposition clutching at political straws time and time again trying to make malicious political mileage out of a situation that does not exist,” he said. “How many times must we come here and refute those malicious allegations that have been put against this government from time to time.” To call the engines prototypes as though they were never commissioned anywhere else in the world and so they were being tried and tested on us here in St. Kitts is absolute foolishness, the Prime Minister said.”” Mr. Burns said that the Mirrlees MB430 Engines had a reputation for being reliable and were successful in many parts of the world including China, Europe and South America. “The impression is being given time and time again that the generators that we brought here in 1999 are no good, that some kind of corruption went on’simply because some persons wish to have another company provide these generators and the government refused to accept the urges of those persons to bring in FILA or whatever the company name generators. You have never heard the end of it since then,” Dr. Douglas said. “I want to make a statement, Mr. Speaker in Parliament and to the people of this country that nothing is wrong with the generators that we brought in 1999,” he said.
