“Alcoa capitalized on Suriname’s limitations”

“Bauxite multinational Alcoa has abused the limitations in the Brokopondo Agreement and the lack of other legislation to gradually end its operations in Suriname,” said Acting President Ashwin Adhin. The multinational has not broken any laws but it has, however, played hard ball by refraining from investing in the maintenance of the refinery which became dilapidated. The refinery would no longer be of any use, even if Suriname were to ‘adopt’ it. Since 2015 Alcoa knew that it would halt its operations in Suriname and that it would also dismantle the refinery located at Paranam. From that moment on no more investments were made.

MP Amzad Abdoel (NDP) deems this willful conduct which must not go unpunished. MP Abdoel explained that Alcoa consciously made sure that the refinery would no longer be useful and that it would also become an environmental risk.

The acting president did not rule out that Alcoa could have had these intentions but stuck to his hard ball theory. The presidential committee also played hard ball by getting the multinational to agree to making $ 325 million available so that the damage to the environment can be repaired. If the costs are much higher, Alcoa will also have to cough up more money. As part of the maintenance plan, the so called mud lakes must be cleaned. The electric bill of about $ 48 million was lowered to $ 4 million as a result of the efforts of the government’s team of negotiators. “Alcoa did in fact capitalize on this situation. We always saw that the negotiating committee played hard ball too,” said the vice president.