Berbice Bridge investment will see slashed mortgage rates

Apr 27, 2009 News

A decrease in interest rates payable on mortgages is one of the many favourable returns foreseen by the Board of Directors of the New Building Society (NBS) accruing from its investments in the Berbice River Bridge.
“With the way things are going with this Berbice River Bridge investment, we see the possibility of at least another one per cent decrease in the interest rates for mortgages in to the not too distant future,” Chairman, Dr. Nanda Kishore Gopaul said to loud applause at the Annual General Members meeting at Cotton Tree Village, West Coast Berbice yesterday.
“Generally, the profits we make go back to the members and that is the reason why we could have dropped the interest rates payable on mortgages from 11 per cent which we used to pay for a long time, to 6.95 per cent, with low income people paying as little as 4.95 per cent,” Dr. Gopaul said yesterday.
“The Board of Directors is very happy and excited about the profitability of the Bridge investment,” he added during the meeting, which also saw himself and the Board addressing a number of concerns of the Committee of Concerned Members.
The NBS Board invited some of these members to work along with it in resolving some of these issues.
The meeting was expected to have been a very heated and tense event because of the agitation by members who were concerned about the bridge investment and other issues.
Instead, it turned out to be relatively calm as the Chairman accommodated these dissenting views and then invited some of the dissenters to work along with the Board in resolving them.
Among issues on which consensus was arrived was the proposed increase in the lending limit from $10M to $12M and above if necessary, with the approval of the Minister of Finance.
A member’s proposal that the ceiling be increased to $12M and that the clause, which would have allowed the Board to lend above this amount, subject to the Minister’s approval, was defeated.
“Twelve million dollars full stop, no other conditionalities for higher than this.”
On the question of the NBS still not being licensed under the Financial Institution Act, another sore issue among concerned members, Chairman Dr. Gopaul said that the company would soon be correcting this anomaly.
“We will join the FIA and will meet all the requirements of the Bank of Guyana,” he assured.
At the conclusion of the AGM yesterday, Mr. Christopher Ram said that there were many questions, which remained to be addressed.
He added, “A good thing which has definitely come out of the tone of this meeting is that us, concerned members and the Board of Directors, seem to be talking. This is a good sign for the future.”

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