Marriott Hotel – Walking back sale, or walking over Guyanese?

Apr 30, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It seems that the Marriott Hotel has a charmed life. In the Guyanese version of its existence, the Marriott has been visited by a peculiar set of developments that raises eyebrows over the suspicious, the secretive, even the sinister. Further, the same Marriott can be said to be a business with a never-ending stream of surprises, most of which leave shakier. The latest surprise is that the first round of bids has been flatly rejected by the government.

Presently, most Guyanese are familiar with how the Marriott Hotel came about here. Significant details about investors, real financing origins, and other issues of the same heavy tint, have been an inseparable part of its arrangements. Bluntly, Guyanese know less than they should know, and what they do not know is not to their benefit. Too many deceitful political minds and powerful political hands tainted the presence of the Marriott from the inception. Unfortunately, the same appears to be in motion again.

The current situation is that the profitable Marriott Hotel is up for sale. What is mindboggling is that the Marriott is being put on the auction block at a time that it is a sweetly profitable institution, and indicating that it will be still more profitable going forward. With the oil sector compelling the need for a host of supporting downstream businesses, it is all upside for the Marriott, without a cloud on its profit horizon.

Relative to why it is being sold, that is part of the mystery and charm of this hotel of growing Guyanese legend. The answers to any questions on this hotel are locked in the head of Vice President Jagdeo. He knows the real reasons for this looming sale, but anything resembling straight and persuasive answers are not forthcoming from him, as is the norm now. To trace its history in this country, the Marriott’s birth was a source of the remarkable for political dexterity; the Marriott’s backing (founding fathers) was startling for its political intrigues, and its current surprising sale in waiting another cause for shaking of local heads.

But just when Guyanese were getting ready to breathe out and put the waiting sale behind them, there is now another twist in the tale of the Marriott, and it possesses an element that even Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of, and it has to do with one of the earlier bidders. We say this because the Marriott Hotel is beginning to look eerily like the Hotel Transylvania, almost a Bates Motel. What commenced as a monstrosity has now become the stuff of fantasy (this sale), and having less and lesser to do with reality.

For locals were astounded to discover that the top bidder for the Marriott Hotel, and by a handsome US$9.5 million margin, has an old blemish on his record. A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) bar because of serious violations of US securities laws is a big deal. For sure, it was back in 2010, and the bar expired seven years ago. The concern was that we already have too many people of a certain unsettling character operating in the local environment. Given that there are so many of them in political and commercial and industrial circles (oil and other natural resources), this country could ill-afford another wheeler dealer.

Thankfully, Guyanese now learn that all the bids have been rejected because they are too low, with an emphasis on the almost guaranteed earnings capabilities of the Marriott. We must congratulate the PPPC Government on getting that one right the first time. Still, we cannot help asking ourselves whether it is, indeed, a matter of the bids being too low, or that the Government and the Vice President realized their error, and looked for a face-saving way to walk back earlier intentions to sell the Marriott. Or it could be that the bidder favored by the Government and the Vice President fell out of the running.

Matters do move in mysterious ways in Guyana, with many unknowns. As much as we try to shake the feeling, from all appearances, everything about the Marriott has been handled wrong from day one. Now the stealing and selling of Guyana continue, but more cleverly.

Editorial, Government, Guyanese, Marriott hotel, mindboggling

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Marriott Hotel – Walking back sale, or walking over Guyanese?

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