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NICIL transfers shares in Berbice Bridge to NIS
…Govt-owned scheme now holds largest stake, has no voting right – PSC
The National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) headed by Winston Brassington has sold its 950 million preferential shares in the Berbice River Bridge to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS).
Head of NICIL
Winston Brassington
These preference shares are non-voting shares and carry no vote at the Berbice Bridge Company’s Shareholders’ Meeting.
This is according to the Private Sector Commission (PSC), who was at the time responding to Financial Analyst, Christopher Ram.
Ram had challenged the Commission when it said that the Bridge is owned 80 per cent by Private Companies and 20 percent by the Government.
Ram had asserted that 76 per cent of the issued shares of the Company are in fact owned by Government.
Yesterday the PSC insisted that it stands by its statement. It said this is so since NICIL no longer owns the 950 million preference shares in the Company because these were purchased by an institutional investor, the NIS.
According to the PSC, “Mr. Ram is dead wrong to use the NIS ownership of the preference shares as synonymous with Government ownership and control.”
The Private Sector Commission said too that “with respect to the NICIL Special Share, which Mr. Ram points to as evidence of government ownership, as Mr. Ram should be aware, this is a common safeguard provision inserted into the Articles of Amendment to protect the interests of the people when assets are privatised.”
The PSC argues, “This Special Share is usually referred to as a “golden share’ and has no financial interest in the Company… It merely allows its holder to prevent the company from acting outside of its mandate and would come into play if, for instance, the Company sought to utilise the bridge as collateral for a debt for a project unrelated to managing and operating the bridge.”
Meanwhile the body also said that it has noted the public response to its release on the intended legislative action for reduction of tolls payable to the Berbice Bridge Company and wishes to reiterate its position that it will not accept governmental interference in the management of private companies.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Roger Luncheon
“Government’s role in Private Limited Liability Companies extends to regulating and enforcing compliance with existing laws,” it said
The commission said, too, that it is of the opinion that private investment must be guaranteed protection from any form of governmental interference with legal investment strategies, most paramount of which is pricing for products and services that directly affects shareholders’ legitimate right to investment returns.
“It is only in the context of such protection that private capital can be harnessed and directed into infrastructural projects which are of crucial importance to the nation but which may be beyond the financial capabilities of government or the capability of government to efficiently manage.”
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