THE FICKLENESS OF GUYANESE

Mar 14, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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When people say that taxpayers’ monies were used to pay for the construction of the Marriott Hotel what they really mean is that the property belongs to the people because it is State funds that were used in its construction and the State is merely the vesting interest of the people.
In this instance the people are not making a distinction between monies collected as taxes and others monies expended by the State. They are speaking about the general source of the money which comes from the State.
When the Head of NICIL says taxpayers’ monies were NOT used in the construction of the Marriot Hotel what he really means is that tax revenues were not used to fund the hotel. A distinction is being made here about the source of the funds. The funds were money held by NICIL and not monies which were collected as taxes.
NICIL does not spend monies raised as taxes. Monies are collected as taxes by the Guyana Revenue Authority. These revenues are passed through the Consolidated Fund and appropriated by parliament. The funds held by NICIL on the other hand are raised by investments, sale of assets and profits from body corporate. These monies are not passed through the Consolidated Fund. Nor does NICIL spending have to be approved by the National Assembly.
According to William Wade and Christopher Forsyth in Administrative Law (11th edition), public corporations have no direct responsibility to parliament. Thus parliament has no role in approving the spending by public corporations whose shareholders are their own masters.
Lord Denning in the 1950 case of Tamlin V Hannaford observed, “In the eye of the law the corporation is its own master and is answerable as fully as any other person or corporation. It is not the Crown and has none of the privileges of the crown. Its servants are not civil servants and its property is not Crown Property… It is not a government department nor do its powers fall within the province of government”
The soon to be completed hotel in Kingston, Georgetown which has been branded by the Marriott chain is owned by its shareholders. It is not owned by NICIL. NICIL lent the hotel money for its completion, monies that have to be repaid.
Given the fact that the proposed equity shareholders did not put money into the hotel, we cannot say that the hotel is owned as yet by them. Nor can we say with certainty that it is owned by NICIL. Whoever are the registered shareholders are the owners and this is different from saying, as if often the case in common language, that the hotel is owned by taxpayers or by the State.
Whoever are the shareholders of the hotel are the owners. Not taxpayers’ not the government not the State. This is the legal position. Tomorrow the shareholders of the hotel can sell the hotel to private individuals and they will then become the new owners.
I am saying this because it seems as if a great many Guyanese are getting excited by the imminent completion of the construction of this hotel. They are getting excited and are eager to visit that location and the hotel to see what it is looks like. They also see this hotel as being owned by the people. But it is not.
The people getting excited by this hotel seem to have forgotten completely all the objections that have been raised about the financing and ownership structure of this hotel. They seem taken in by the fact that Guyana’s landscape has been changed for the better by this hotel. The people are excited.
This is the fickleness of people. One day they are up in arms about this hotel and what it represents. The next day they cannot wait to get inside and see what its looks like so that they can show off to their friends that they were inside the Marriot.
While there are some folks in the opposition who were hoping that they could use this hotel as an example of why the PPP should not be returned to power in the elections in May there are tens of thousands who seem so excited by its imminent completion that they can hardly wait for a tour.
It is a lesson that the opposition parties should heed. The opposition parties at the moment have only one major platform on which to confront the government. That platform is about the nature of some of the government major projects and the alleged corruption that is said to be represented in these projects.
This is supposed to be lightning rod of the opposition in this year’s election campaign.
Well from the excitement that the impending opening of this hotel is generating, the opposition parties’ platform is collapsing in front of their faces.
People are getting excited. They love the hotel and want it to open quickly, regardless of who owns it or the debt that has to be repaid to NICIL. As far as they are concerned those things are now secondary.

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