Marriott Hotel now bordering on illegality – Joe Harmon

Sep 18, 2013 News

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CJIA terms and conditions not in the best interest of Guyanese

 

“China and India are countries with a lot of corruption, corrupt politicians, corrupt officials and corrupt contractors…It is naïve to believe that when those contractors come into contact with politicians and officials in other countries they will behave like angels,” – Ramon Gaskin

The terms and conditions of the contract for the Expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International

Airport (CJIA) are not in the best interest of Guyanese and the recent revelations on the Marriott Hotel suggest that the project borders on illegality.
This is the view of Shadow Minister, with responsibility for Public Works, Joseph Harmon, who said on the airport project, the government has to convene a seminar where the administration should provide all of the necessary information to determine a way forward.
Harmon is adamant that in its current construct, the Airport Project cannot go ahead.
Responding to a recent statement by Works Minister Robeson Benn, that the airport project will go ahead as is, Harmon said that he is not sure if the Minister’s comment was made out of “ignorance” or if he just wants to show that he is aggressive.
Harmon told this publication that should there be no information forthcoming on the airport project, he is doubtful that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) will be voting in favour of any money to be spent from the coffers on that project.
Asked what APNU’s response would be should the administration opt for another source of funds such as the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), as is the case with the Marriott Hotel, Harmon said that this will be met with “decisive political action.”
He said that there was not much optimism in opting for court action, given, among other factors, the slothfulness of the Judiciary.
Only recently this publication reported that the Guyana Government had agreed to pay for any defects

incurred by the Chinese in the expansion of the airport.
Kaieteur News had also reported that Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI) was in the final stages of closing a deal for the two-thirds equity ownership of the Marriott Hotel.
According to Harmon, the position expressed by AHI’s Chairman, Winston Brassington, is perplexing, given that former president Bharrat Jagdeo had confidently reported to the nation that the finances for the project had been secured, but the names of the investors could not be revealed because of confidentiality.
Brassington yesterday told this publication that AHI was hoping to have financial closure with the investor before the end of the year.
He said that AHI has executed an agreement with the investor and is awaiting financial closure.
Meanwhile, Financial Analyst, Ramon Gaskin, in his latest writings on the airport project, said that if pursued in its present form, it is quite likely to end up being “one great disaster burdening the taxpayers for years to come with a project loan and cost that is not value for money.”
According to Gaskin, the CJIA project is a draft of one of the high profile projects conceived by the Bharrat Jagdeo administration.
Instances of these are the National Stadium (Indian construction and financing); Packaging Plant

(India, China); International Convention Centre (China); Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Plant (China financing); Specialty Hospital (India) and the Marriott Hotel (Chinese construction with NICIL funds).
According to Gaskin, “the common feature of all of these big ticket projects is more about an obsession with legacy building and less with national development or raising the quality of life of the ordinary people.”
Gaskin said that these projects have nothing to do with permanent job creation, technology transfer, raising incomes or creating the returns or surplus to repay debt.
“They stand as monuments to an increasing rich-poor divide, widening marginalization, neglect of communities, a capital city that stinks and public services that are inadequate and deteriorating…What little good health and education opportunities exist are in the main reserved for those who can afford it.”
Gaskin said too that another set of common features of all of these projects: they are secretly done, with no transparency and parliamentary oversight; the tendering process is absent or if done, as in the case of the Specialty Hospital, is attended by allegations of unfairness.
“They are all therefore necessarily and severely overpriced…These big ticket projects will not only cause a sharp use in the external debt (or guaranteed debt) but the burdens of repayment will have to be carried by the National Budget, because the projects themselves are not likely to produce the returns to service debt.”
Gaskin said too that another common thread, “when we look at all these big ticket deals,” is the Indian and

Chinese involvement.
According to Gaskin, “both China and India are countries with a lot of corruption, corrupt politicians, corrupt officials and corrupt contractors…It is naïve to believe that when those contractors come into contact with politicians and officials in other countries they will behave like angels…Human nature does not operate like that.”

 

 

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