Govt. still to be paid in full for GT&T shares

Oct 02, 2015 News

…Hong Kong buyer has US$5M outstanding

The Guyana Government is still to be paid in full for the 20 per cent shares it once owned in the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T and which was managed by the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
Those shares were sold by NICIL to Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group, a Hong Kong-based company with a sale price of US$30M. That was three years ago.
Of that amount the company had paid over US$25M. The remaining US$5M was supposed to have been paid over within a two-year period but this did not happen.
Available records do not reflect a payment from Datang that constitutes a final payment for the shares government had owned in the telephone company.
This publication was reliably informed that as at December 31, last, the final tranche of payment was not made to NICIL.
The name Datang had previously remained obscured as a result of the confidential agreement which was entered to in early 2011 with the Guyana government and only came to light following the finalization of the sale.
Datang had come in for scrutiny after it was discovered that the company actually featured in a US intelligence report as a company with links to the Chinese Military and was accused of spying.
The Pentagon had reported that “Information technology companies in particular, including Huawei, Datang and Zhongxing, maintain close ties to the PLA [People’s Liberation Army],” the report says.”
Datang is one of China’s showpiece hi-tech companies that specialises in the development, production and sale of electronic information systems and equipment. Founded in 1999, the company is reportedly managed by the Chinese State-run Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.
The then Guyana Government had also found itself on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism when it was discovered that the money secured through the Datang deal with NICIL, was in fact used to press ahead with the construction of the controversial Guyana Marriott Hotel.
At the time construction had already started on the Marriott with the contractor, Shanghai Construction Group.
Up until the sale, the government was receiving from GT&T, an annual dividend of US$2.5M, making it the most successful investment ever undertaken by any administration in this country.
When the shares were initially placed on the market, GT&T employees had offered to buy them but this was rejected by government which was adamant that the shares had to be purchased en bloc.

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Govt. still to be paid in full for GT&T shares

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