One lie always attracts another

Dec 07, 2014 Features / Columnists, My Column

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Ever since I was growing up I was taught that honesty is the best policy. Not much later someone taught me that if you tell a lie you will have to tell many others, because a lie always attracts another. Take the case of the philandering man who tells his wife that he was out with the boys.
The wife nods, but like women who men think are fools, she would revisit the situation a few hours or days later. She would ask about the boys and whether she knows any of them. The poor man is going to make a mistake and call a name, not knowing that the wife had already contacted him. A slew of lies would follow, all of them helping to create a tangled web.
Last year as the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) was gearing to raise money for the continued construction of the Marriott, its head, Winston Brassington spoke of the various sources of funding, one of which was the consolidated group that would be put together by Republic Bank. The sum was to be US$27 million.
Toward the end of last year, the press kept asking about the consolidation of the accounts and was told that by the end of November – later this became the end of December 2013 – all the funding would have been in place. One year passed and suddenly there is a notice that the Marriott was being mortgaged in two lots. Further, adjoining lands were being mortgaged in another lot.
Kaieteur News secured the figures for the mortgages and made these public. But NICIL sought to debunk the publication. For one, the company said that no figures were published in the notice contained in the Official Gazette. That may have been true, but mortgages are for sums of money, so those sums could be obtained by enterprising people.
NICIL then contended that the mortgaging represented a part of the financing arrangements as announced some time back. Poppycock. There was no mention of a mortgage.
NICIL did trot out two Hong Kong investors who were supposed to put US$8 million into the project. The investors are still to put their money. We now wonder whether they intended to put any money in the first instance.
Yet it is the lie about the financing arrangements being put in place that caught my eye. If the mortgaging represents the funding by the syndicated investors, then these people are going about it in a very strange way. Brassington and the government will now have to come up with another lie.
Indeed, the nation watched the extent of construction with the US$20 million that NICIL put into the project and concluded that by no stretch will another US$30 million be needed for its completion. There are some issues here. It is either that the final cost of the hotel was grossly exaggerated or that NICIL, by some strange trick, found much more money to continue the construction. I expect another lie to explain what happened.
I know that the hotel has already employed a Colombian or some Latin American to be the General Manager. Other foreign staffers have been employed and are already being paid. I know that the money being paid to these people is much more than the authorities would have been prepared to pay any Guyanese.
These are announcements that have to be made if I am not to name the appointees ahead of NICIL and Brassington. I would also like to know how much money is being paid, because public funds are involved and the nonsense about privacy could not apply.
Situations like that have forced the opposition to talk about distrust of the government. The opposition has always accused the government of being less than open with information on public projects. Unless there is a measure of dishonesty, I could see no reason why these people cannot say what is going on.
In other countries the media would have been kept up to date on the developments. There would have been tours of the Marriott for constant updates. This has not happened, but if and when the hotel is completed, there would be the various photo ops and grinning faces, all saying that we have made a fool of the people once more.
We have been told that the mortgage would be repaid when the hotel is up and running. I am not sure how long it will take the hotel to repay US$29 million and over what period. I do know that interest is accrued as soon as the mortgage is approved and even before the hotel opens its doors.
The operators must be certain of heavy occupancy in a country that cannot even sustain the various rooms that are available. We do know that Pegasus has been enjoying a boom in recent months. We also know that Marriott expects to kill Pegasus.
I would be interested in knowing the local investors because despite the façade, there are some rich Guyanese who have put their money into the hotel. The strange thing is that there were some people who had demonstrated an interest who were ignored because they would have been talking too much about this project that is still shrouded in secrecy.
Whatever the case, Brassington must explain the difference between the mortgages and the funding by the syndicated investors.

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