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THE NICIL TOUCH
There was once a King called Midas. Everything he touched turned to gold. Later there was a dictator nicknamed Fatboy. Everything he touched, according to Walter Rodney, turned into fecal matter.
There is now a new touch in Guyana. It is called the NICIL touch. Now this is a special type of touch. When NICIL touches certain things the most unexpected things happen.
Take for example the shares of the government in the Berbice River Bridge. Those shares were supposed to grant control over the Board of the Bridge Company. Instead, minority shareholders have seized control of the Board. As such, even if the government wanted to reduce tariffs, they cannot do so because control of the Board has been shed.
Then there is the Marriott Hotel in which NICIL is the major shareholder in the company Atlantic Hotel Inc. that is building the hotel. Some four billion dollars has been expended. There is yet to be financial closure. With the opposition warning investors that this project does not enjoy the support of the parliamentary opposition and that they, the opposition, could not be relied upon to honour any obligations to this project. This effectively ends this project and NICIL will now be left with an empty concrete structure, compliments of the initial secrecy and lack of transparency which had been a feature of the early stages of the project. Onto now no one knows the identities of the syndicated investors.
This is the NICIL touch at the best. They touch the hotel project and the potential investors go into hiding. They touch the Berbice River Bridge and the government shares seem to have gone into hiding.
NICIL was also involved in the negotiations for the construction of the Amalia Falls Hydroelectric Project. A road was being constructed and has already had tremendous cost overruns. NICIL seems to have ignored the possibility of incorporating this element into the responsibilities of the investors. That idea seems to have disappeared off of its radar.
A great deal of money has already been wasted on this project and a great deal more is likely to go down the drain unless NICIL is removed from this project.
But as with everything else, NICIL seems to have created a miracle. Moses parted the Red Sea. After the Israelites had crossed, the waters returned and drowned the pursuers. NICIL did not have the same luck. They had difficulty defending this project and then suddenly the water that feeds the falls disappeared, leaving a huge question mark over the technical feasibility of this project.
NICIL is hoping to next get their paws on the proposed new Bridge that is to be constructed across the Demerara River. The government has already decided that NICIL is to be the chief cook and bottle washer of this project.
The same flawed model of a public-private partnership is being used for this major infrastructural project. The opposition is already upset that NICIL will be involved. Once that happens you can never tell what is going to happen to this bridge.
There is no guarantee that under a public–private partnership that the tariffs will remain unchanged. Forget about the pre-feasibility studies. No private investor is going to plug money into a bridge to allow a motor car to cross for $100. The only way that is going to be allowed to happen is if the government finances the bridge itself.
For this to happen, NICIL may have to inject some equity into the project and waive dividends and interests. But will NICIL do this? Or are such concessions only reserved for public-private partnerships which end up handing over control, profits and dividends to private investors?
With NICIL involved in this bridge, parliamentary oversight and approval will be absent, and without this, NICIL will be free to once again perform one of its Houdini-like acts.
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