Letters: Kit Nascimento responds to Gouveia’s letter

Dear Editor,

I have seen a letter to the media from Mr. Gerry Gouveia seeking to personally denigrate Mr. Michael Correia and his family which can only be described as self-centered, self-serving, self-indulgent and narcissistic.

I respond only because Mr. Gouveia has insulted both myself and Captain Chan-A-Sue by claiming that Mr. Correia, at Board Meetings, shouts us into silence. Anyone who knows Captain Chan-A-Sue, to say nothing of myself, and reads this nonsense is bound to find it laughable. It, however, demonstrates the extraordinary low level to which Mr. Gouveia is prepared to descend in public to express his ire.

My company has provided professional public communication consultancy services to a very large number of highly regarded companies and corporations here in Guyana, in the Caribbean and, from time to time, internationally. My company has also represented Ogle Airport Inc. for over 15 years. I can say without hesitation that Michael Correia is one of the finest CEO’s I have been privileged to work with.

In the course of these years, I have witnessed, under Michael Correia’s leadership, the extraordinary growth of what is today the Eugene F. Correia International Airport from a light aircraft facility with a tiny airstrip built mainly for the purpose for accommodating Guysuco’s crop dusters, to a first class Regional International Airport.

It cannot be gainsaid that, though the idea and original commitment came from 5 local aviation companies, including Gouveia’s company, to form Ogle Airport Inc. to bid for the privatization of Ogle Airport in 2001 when the Airport was ruled as unsafe by the International Civil Aviation Authority and threatened with closure, it was Correia’s company and Correia’s determination to stay faithful to the commitment when the others balked at the investment. It is mostly Correia’s money that has built the International Airport from which Gouveia’s company and the others operating out of the Airport and, indeed, Guyana, benefit today.

For me, it is unthinkable that Gerry Gouveia, whose company’s contribution to the investment in the Airport is 2 ¼ percent, should attack the Correia family in this ugly public fashion. What has been achieved at Ogle, it is worth reminding Mr. Gouveia, when he makes self-serving comparisons with his own achievements, has never depended on political patronage for its success.

Yours sincerely,

………………………

Kit Nascimento

Managing Director