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China Rail land deal still remain a mystery
– NICIL’s deputy declines top answer without permission of boss
“I will not be answering any questions without the permission of my boss.”
Winston Brassington
This was the assertion of Marcia Nadir-Sharma, the deputy to Winston Brassington, who sits as Executive Director of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) as well as Atlantic Hotels Inc (AHI).
Nadir-Sharma is also the Company Secretary to AHI, while Brassington sits as its Chairperson.
The two are the only two officials in AHI, the special purpose company created to build and own the Marriott Hotel under construction in Kingston, Georgetown.
Winston Brassington has been evading this publication from the beginning of this year as it relates to providing any information regarding the Hotel and more recently, the transfer of lands from NICIL to the China Railway Engineering Group.
This publication attempted to solicit information yesterday from Nadir-Sharma who in turn responded by saying that Brassington might not have been answering his phone because he is unavailable and further, any questions should be emailed to him.
It is now five months since a commitment by Brassington to disclose who the US$8M private equity investor would be for the project.
Brassington has made several such assurances that the public would know the investor. However the identity remains a mystery.
The Guyana Government through NICIL is, to date, the sole known investor in the Georgetown Marriott Hotel given that AHI is yet to have financial closure for US$39M of the US$58.5M required for its completion.
NICIL has already injected its US$20M, which it had committed to the project, so it is unclear what the source of financing is for the works currently being executed.
Prior to the NICIL money, Government had given Courtney Benn Contracting Services Limited a US$1M contract for the rerouting of the sewerage system in the Kingston locale. That contract was pulled after more than US$700,000 was paid over. It was then given to an overseas company, for a further US$2M.
AHI also leased the prime seven acres of shorefront property on which the Hotel rests for a measly US$120 (G$24,000) per month with the option to buy.
The Food and Drug Department which had a building in the location was removed and that property was dismantled.
Brassington, last September, held a special media briefing on the project and told reporters that while the AHI would have executed a number of agreements with Republic Bank and the private investor, whom he is still to name, there is no definitive financial closure for the money as yet.
He said, then, that AHI was looking to have this aspect of the deal concluded by year end (2013), so that the hotel could be completed and opened this year.
“We haven’t closed but we have every confidence it will close soon,” Brassington had said.
That unnamed private investor will be putting US$8M in the project and will have majority ownership of AHI, equivalent to 67 per cent shares in the company, while government will own 33 per cent.
Brassington’s deputy, Marcia Nadir-Sharma
And Brassington has also remained silent over a tract of land that NICIL has given to the China Railway Engineering Group.
China Railway is currently involved in the construction of a section of the Amaila Falls Access Road and was also considered as a key construction partner during discussions last year on the controversial Amaila Falls Hydro Project.
According to the Official Gazette, one acre of land at Plantation Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara, as shown on a plan by D. Ramkarran, a sworn land surveyor, dated June 18, 2013 and signed by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh on April 4, was transferred to NICIL.
NICIL then transferred to China Railway Guyana Incorporated, a piece of land, as the donor and the donee. There was no cost attached to the land transfer. It is unclear why NICIL would have provided this land to China Railway, whether the land was publicly advertised for sale, or if indeed any money was paid for the acre of prime property.
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