Jagdeo is out of time and out of line

Apr 28, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo has to learn time and place. A party press conference is hardly the place or the time to make announcements about government’s decisions.

Jagdeo has been in the political fray for many decades. Today, he is perceived to be the maximum leader within the PPPC and is also believed to wield inordinate influence within the government. It is therefore surprising that he is yet to master the difference in content between a party press conference and a government press conference. Not only this, but he also speaks on matters that are outside his portfolio.

At yesterday’s PPP press conference, he made some astonishing remarks. He said that the government invited the bids for the Marriott Hotel as a way of testing the market. But is this not duplicitous? How do the bidders who spent considerable sums to prepare their bids feel about being used to test the market to see what price the hotel would attract?  Those who submitted bids would have been under the impression that they were bidding for the hotel and not being used to see what price the hotel would attract. Is this fair to them?

It is one thing to say that most of the bids were below the floor price which government had in mind. No person selling a property would be obligated to sell to the highest bidder especially if that bid does not meet the price which the government expects. But it is a completely different thing to say that the government was testing the market. Testing the market may be something which may be done for private property sales but not for a bid for a government –owned hotel. And even private real estate dealers are frowning on the practice of testing the market which is fraught with disadvantages. There is no need to test the market. The government would have received a market valuation for the property – or at least one hopes so. That valuation obviates the need to test the price which the hotel would fetch on the open market.  Is this how the government does business? Or is this a cake shop manner of running government.

The government says it was testing the market and that the bids were lower than the value which the government was seeking. But how do we know for certain this is indeed the case? Could it be that there was a push-back on the government? Could it be that the government wants to avoid, at least at this stage, a controversy, over the sale of a profitable venture?  Glenn Lall, the publisher of this newspaper, has been making a strong case as to why the hotel should not be sold. Others have raised similar concerns.

A second push-back may have come following reports that one of the bidders had some issues in the United States years ago. The government may not want to be caught-up in a controversy over due diligence and as such may have decided to place the sale of the hotel on hold. But what about the way forward? Will the hotel be re-advertised? And if so, will the government announce a floor price?

Or are there other twists to this saga? Is the government going to invite a favoured investor to provide a bid that is superior to the ones submitted and once this is done the government going to hand the hotel to the favored bidder?  It is not beyond the realm of possibility for this to happen. The public must therefore watch this hotel sale with ‘hawk-like eyes”.

It is important that there be fairness and transparency in the sale of the hotel. The hotel is a public asset.  The public must insist on competitive bidding for the hotel so as to deter the possibility of the hotel being handed to some friend of the government at a price above those who were recently tested in the market. The people therefore must insist that any future invitation for bids must be via a competitive and transparent process. Bidders must also be given adequate time to prepare bids.

Better yet, the people should impress on the government not to sell the hotel. A peaceful protest, by forming a peaceful and orderly human chain around the hotel, and which attracts thousands of peace loving persons, may be enough to dissuade the government from selling. In the meantime, somebody should advise Jagdeo that NICIL falls under the Ministry of Finance. There is a Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance. That Minister should be the one speaking about the sale of the hotel, not Jagdeo.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, Conference, Marriott hotel, maximum, Vice President

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