21 May 2014

Questions over benefits from relocation of US marines to Guam

7:44 pm on 21 May 2014

People in Guam are being urged to consider who are going to be the real benefactors of the plan to transfer thousands of marines to the territory from Japan by the year 2028.

Last night was the last opportunity for members of the public to hear about the United States proposal, which would result in the population increasing by nearly 10,000.

Guam has a current population of 160,000.

Department of defence officials have held a series of public hearings to dissect a draft environmental impact statement, on the move.

The spokesperson for the We Are Guahan organisation Leevin Camacho, says people have to weigh up whether it's only going to benefit a handful of people.

"There's a lot of mis-information that's being spread by groups who look to gain billions of dollars off of construction contracts so the question that we ask everyone to consider is whether or not the move to Guam will be good for Guam as a whole and not for just a handful of people and their off-island joint ventures who are really the ones who are going to make the most money off of this."

Leevin Camacho says people have until June 17th to submit comments on the environmental impact study.