GTT pays money to Court Registry

Feb 01, 2020 News

Kaieteur News published yesterday, an article with the headline, “Sale of Govt. 20% shares in GTT… High Court orders seizure of US$3.2M from GTT bank account.”
In response to that article, the telephone company informed Kaieteur News that it complied with the ruling of the court, contrary to the inference in the published article.
The newspaper acknowledges that the publication, coming as it did, created the wrong impression.
In a letter signed by Vice President and Legal Adviser, Mark Reynolds, the company paid the money on January 27, last, in keeping with the order, of the court.
The money represented dividends accruing to the Hong Kong-based company that reportedly bought the 20 per cent shares.
The Hong Kong-based company, according to the Bharrat Jagdeo administration, acquired the shares for US$30M. It paid to the Jagdeo administration US$25M, and declined to pay the balance.
The money from the shares should have gone to the National Industrial and Commercial Investment Limited (NICIL).
Sometime later it offered to pay US$3M, but NICIL refused the sum and opted to go to court.
The result is that dividends payable to the Hong Kong-based company must now be paid to NICIL.
The Kaieteur News article resulted from a court ruling issued January 13, 2020.
The company was given 14 days to honour the order of court, which the telephone company did, according to the letter from GTT.
In the letter, GTT explained that the primary respondent to NICIL’s claim is Hong Kong Golden Telecom Company. GTT was joined in the proceedings as an interested party. It did not owe NICIL.
GTT was at pains to point out that the court did not order the seizure of any money from the GTT bank account. It said that the suggestion that the telephone company was reluctant to pay was baseless.
There was no attempt by Kaieteur News to “denigrate the public image of the financial standing and reputation of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company”.

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