Jeff Rent, public relations and media manager at the Mississippi Development Authority, confirmed in an email to Breitbart News on Monday that the Mississippi state agency responsible for economic development has disbursed $5 million in loan proceeds to the GreenTech Automotive electric vehicle manufacturing project in Tunica County, Mississippi.
“All of the $5 min [million] assistance has been disbursed,” read Rent’s brief email in reply to our earlier inquiry.
According to the terms of a 2011 Memorandum of Understanding, the State of Mississippi loaned $3 million of this $5 million directly to GreenTech Automotive, the company which Terry McAuliffe, now the Democratic nominee for governor in Virginia, served as chairman from 2010 to 2012. The state loaned the remaining $2 million directly to Tunica County, Mississippi, which used the proceeds to purchase the estimated 1,500 acre parcel of land on which the proposed GreenTech Automotive electric vehicle manufacturing plant will be located.
On July 17, GreenTech Automotive issued a press release about the Tunica County project that stated, “[w]ith $6.6-million site preparation complete, construction begins on [GreenTech Automotive]’s primary manufacturing facility, which will provide annual production capacity of 30,000 cars.”
According to GreenTech Chairman and CEO Charles Wang, “[a]fter more than a year of planning, testing and site preparation, we are excited for GreenTech’s permanent home to start taking shape in Phase 2. . . We are looking forward to completing the new facility early next year and continuing to create new jobs in northern Mississippi.”“
Image courtesy of Brooks Taylor and the Tunica Times