CEN­TRE STAGE

The pro­pa­gan­da costs for the Alutrint smelter must al­so be shown to the pub­lic. When prepar­ing the ac­counts of Alutrint, of­fi­cials must in­clude pro­pa­gan­da costs.

The ul­ti­mate stake­hold­ers, the pub­lic, must know how much it cost to make pro­pa­gan­da for a project which is ru­inous to its health, econ­o­my and ecol­o­gy. What are some of these pro­pa­gan­da costs? n The cost of food, drink and trans­port for bussing in par­ti­san sup­port to La Brea for pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions.

�2 The cost of thou­sands of "Build de Smelter" jer­seys.

�2 The cost of hun­dreds of full-page news­pa­per ads telling of how nice the smelter is.

�2 The cost of the Alutrint newslet­ter, cir­cu­lat­ed by the tens of thou­sands.

�2 The cost of tele­vi­sion ads and doc­u­men­taries of var­i­ous lengths de­signed to make the smelter look like se­ri­ous de­vel­op­ment.

�2 The cost of spon­sor­ship of lo­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions, events and peo­ple, for ex­am­ple, foot­ball team, fetes, sports per­son­al­i­ties.

�2 The cost of thou­sands of fliers, the lat­est a pam­phlet (14" x 8.5") by the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for La Brea, and a colour ad­ver­tise­ment (17" x 11") for the ra­dio pro­gramme La Brea To­day.

�2 The cost of the La Brea To­day fea­ture on ten ra­dio sta­tions, 20 times a week, which has been run­ning for a cou­ple of weeks now.

�2 The cost of sev­en en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact state­ments, dis­guised to look like re­al sci­ence, but are Alutrint-fi­nanced man­i­festoes de­signed to hide the cost of neg­a­tive im­pacts and prop­a­gate ben­e­fits.

�2 The costs of sym­po­siums for Alutrint, one at Paria Suite and the oth­er at UWI, de­signed to pro­vide a rack for the Prime Min­is­ter to hang his smelter hat: at the end of these sym­po­siums, al­ter­ing truth, he de­clared that the ex­perts had said that the smelter was good.

When­ev­er Alutrint, the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion, the Cor­po­ra­tion Sole (Min­is­ter of Fi­nance), the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Prof Ken Julien, Philip Julien (act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Alutrint) de­cide to re­veal the ac­counts of Alutrint, they must in­clude these costs.

Over the past three years all of the above en­ti­ties have been sent re­quests, by Par­lia­ment and var­i­ous publics, ask­ing to see the ac­counts or eco­nom­ics of Alutrint. But there has been no an­swer, just si­lence. The peo­ple, the own­ers of Alutrint, are get­ting two Din­ner Mints for their dol­lar: one pro­pa­gan­da, the oth­er si­lence. Both are cost­ly. But the more trag­ic cost is si­lence.