Tenders open for cleaning, parking lot ‘face-lift,’ other services for Marriott Hotel

Apr 24, 2023 News

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Kaieteur News – Four invitations for tender on Sunday opened for services for the Guyana Marriott Hotel, which is currently up for sale.
According to the advertisement in Kaieteur News April 23, 2023 edition, it was stated that the hotel intends to use part of its budgetary allocation for the following: striping and marking of the parking lot, washing and cleaning of the building facade and all glass windows and unarmed security service for a period of 12 to 18 months. All tenders must be address to the hotel’s Finance Manager, Ahiliyia Kumar on or before May 8, 2023.

The tenders for the hotels come at a time when bids have already been submitted to National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) for the acquisition of the US$60 million Kingstown Georgetown property.

Last December, it was announced that the Government of Guyana (GoG) had decided to sell the hotel which is now making a profit. Months later Vice President (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo revealed that the hotel has emerged into a profitable venture since coming to existence back in April 2015.

The sale of the Marriott Hotel is being facilitated by the government, through NICIL. On April 17, NICIL received six proposals for the “profitable” Marriott Hotel.
Among the bidders is an American company, a Jamaican company, as well as local companies. Coming in as the highest bidder at US$65 million is the American company X, LLC whose principal is listed as Ramy El-Batwari, local businessman and owner of the Pegasus Hotel, Robert Badal in second with a bid of US$55.5 million. The third highest bidder spot goes to a local consortium, Integrated Group Guyana Limited, headed by Ravindra Prashad with a bid of US$55 million.

At fourth spot there is Georgetown Investments and Management Services Inc. (Princess Hotel), General Manager Mustafa Eray Kanmaz bidding US$50 million. The lowest bidders are: NCB Capital Markets Limited, a Jamaican Company headed by Steve Gooding with a bid of US$33 million and Muneshwers Limited, owned by Amarnauth Muneshwer with the lowest bid of US$25 million.

Moreover, while there is no public financial statements available for the Marriott Hotel since 2015, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NICIL, Radha Krishna Sharma, had disclosed that to date the audits for the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, together with the field audits for the year 2020 and 2021 have been completed following the intervention of the new Board of Directors for the hotel. He noted however, that the audit for the year 2022 is still ongoing and when this is completed the audited accounts will be published.

PROFITABLE VENTURE

The Marriott Hotel started under the Jagdeo administration when he was President using taxpayers’ dollars and with a syndicated loan through the Republic Bank Limited of Trinidad and had opened its doors on April 17, 2015.

Jagdeo said during a press conference that the Marriott Hotel is “a profitable venture” and is “making a profit”, but stated that it is of no supreme benefit to the Government owning it anymore. The VP justified the sale of the hotel by stating that within a few years several hotels are expected to come on stream and in order to avoid competition, this is the best time to maximize the profit and sell the hotel.

Importantly, the Vice President also stated that the proceeds from the sale of the hotel will be used, “to clear off the remaining loan and some of it will come back to the Treasury to be used back for whatever purpose is determined.” Kaieteur News had highlighted that under the syndicated loan agreement, the preferred rights goes to those investors – meaning that in the event of the hotel being unable to service the loan – the unknown investors would have the first lien on the proceeds of any sale.

Notably, a decision by the former administration has resulted in US$1.1 million ($226 million) of taxpayers’ dollars coming out every six months (since 2017) to service the US$27 million loan from the bank – for a 13-year period. This was after the hotel was unable to service the loan. In order to prevent the hotel from being acquired by the bank, the former Government in April 2017 made the decision to transfer the hotel’s financial obligations to the Central Government.

However, VP Jagdeo stated that while in Opposition the PPP-administration was opposed to the hotel’s financial obligation being transferred.

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• cleaning, face-lift, Guyana, Hotel, Marriott, parking lot

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