Questions mount over $400M Berbice Bridge deal

Sep 24, 2026 News

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— Ram raises concerns over liquidation, valuation and possible FMAA implications

(Kaieteur News) – Chartered Accountant and commentator Christopher Ram is questioning the Government’s decision to spend at least $400 million to acquire shares in the Berbice Bridge Company Inc. (BBCI), arguing that the transaction raises serious questions about the value received by the State, the company’s liquidation and the use of public funds.

In a commentary published yesterday, Ram said the transaction was particularly concerning because the Government’s 2026 Mid-Year Report, dated August 28 and released on September 14, made no mention of either the proposed acquisition of BBCI or the company’s decision on August 21 to voluntarily wind up. Ram recalled that President Irfaan Ali had announced in August 2025 that Government was in the final stages of negotiations to acquire the Bridge and that Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh was leading those negotiations. “By August 21, 2026, Singh had therefore been leading the negotiations for a full year,” Ram said.

He noted that on August 21, BBCI’s members resolved to wind up the company voluntarily and appointed chartered accountant Raan Motilall as liquidator. Yet, Ram said, within days of the Mid-Year Report being released, the public learnt that Government had paid $400 million in the transaction.

According to former BBCI Chairman Paul Cheong, Government purchased all 400 million issued ordinary shares at $1 each, with the money paid to existing shareholders. Ram stressed that a purchase of shares is fundamentally different from purchasing the company’s assets. “A share sale does not dispose of the company’s assets or liabilities,” he said, arguing that liquidation instead deals with the company’s assets, liabilities and obligations. He questioned how the share purchase fitted into the voluntary liquidation of BBCI.

“If the $400 million transaction occurred after August 21, did Motilall sanction it?” Ram asked. “If before, why did Government buy the shares of a company whose members were about to put it into liquidation?”

Ram also questioned what remained for the liquidator to deal with after Government acquired the ordinary shares and what happened to BBCI’s preference shares, bonds, other financial instruments, liabilities and obligations. He further rejected the suggestion that Government effectively acquired an $8 billion Bridge for $400 million simply because BBCI had 400 million shares issued at $1 each. “The number of shares in issue tells us nothing about the value of the company,” Ram said, describing the multiplication of the number of shares by $1 as “an arithmetic exercise, not a valuation.”

He also challenged the description of $1 as the shares’ “nominal value,” noting that Guyana abolished par or nominal value for shares when the Companies Act 1991 came into force in 1995. According to Ram, the more important issue is the Bridge’s existing concession agreement.

He said BBCI did not own the Berbice River Bridge in perpetuity but operated it under a fixed-term concession due to expire in 2027. Under the Berbice River Bridge Act and the concession agreement, he said, the Bridge and specified rights and assets were to pass to Government at the end of the concession period, subject to the terms of the agreement.

Against that background, Ram questioned why Government needed to purchase BBCI’s ordinary shares for $400 million only months before the contractual handover. He also pointed to Government’s existing involvement in BBCI through NICIL, which held the company’s special or “golden” share and associated veto rights.

Ram said there was also no basis yet to conclude that $400 million represented the State’s full financial exposure. He noted that BBCI’s audited financial statements disclosed other substantial obligations and argued that a complete accounting was needed of the company’s liabilities, preference shares, debt instruments and any obligations assumed or discharged directly or indirectly by Government.

“Until there is a complete accounting … the transaction should properly be described as involving at least $400 million, and potentially more,” he said.

The commentator also raised questions about the role of Government’s legal advisers and the Attorney General, whom he described as the principal legal adviser to the State. Ram said a transaction involving the acquisition of shares in a company entering liquidation, alongside the Government’s existing rights under the concession, required competent and independent legal advice.

He then pointed to the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA), particularly Sections 31, 48 and 49. He said Section 31 regulates the requisition and payment of public money, while Section 48 prohibits a Minister or official from misusing, misapplying or improperly disposing of public funds. Section 49, he added, provides for personal liability where loss of public money is caused or contributed to through misconduct or deliberate or serious disregard of reasonable standards of care.

Ram stressed that he was not alleging that any statutory breach had occurred.  “On the basis of publicly available information, there is no finding of statutory breaches,” he said. However, he argued that the provisions make the questions surrounding the transaction more serious. “Who gave the legal advice? Who authorised and certified the payment? What valuation supported it? And what precisely did the State acquire for its money?” he asked.

Ram also drew a comparison with the Government’s repeated invocation of the “sanctity of contract” principle in relation to ExxonMobil and the 2016 Petroleum Agreement. He questioned why that principle should not equally apply to the Berbice Bridge concession, which contained a contractual end date and provisions for the Bridge and specified assets to pass to the State.

“Why was the State paying $400 million for shares in the concessionaire only months before the contractual handover?” he asked. Ram concluded that the Berbice Bridge issue goes beyond whether Government secured a good or bad bargain. He argued that, if public money was paid when it should not have been, the matter could potentially involve questions of misuse or misapplication of public funds and personal liability under the FMAA. “The failure to obtain or heed such advice may bring into play an even more critical piece of legislation—the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act,” Ram said.

Make agreement public

Last week Member of Parliament for A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Dr. Terrence Campbell, said the agreements governing the financing, ownership and eventual acquisition of the Berbice River Bridge should be made public. Responding to questions from the media about the process and agreements under which the bridge was financed and subsequently sold back to the Government, as well as whether the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) recouped its investment, Campbell said the lack of publicly available agreements makes it difficult to determine what returns the NIS received. “We can’t even tell because the agreements made have not—the agreements signed, if any, have not been made public. The Berbice River Bridge was a massive heist by cronies of the PPP government,” he said.

Campbell said he did not recall all the exact figures but noted that private investors reportedly contributed less than the NIS, while receiving common shares that carried voting rights. “The cronies put up X and they got what are called the common shares, the shares that are able to vote and so on, and the NIS put up more than X, the NIS was the biggest investor,” he said.

Campbell pointed out that although the NIS provided the majority of the financing for the bridge, it did not receive common shares. Instead, it received preference shares, leaving it without voting power or management control over the bridge. He said that arrangement was particularly concerning from a business perspective. Campbell acknowledged that he did not have sufficient information to determine the full financial details of the arrangement.

“I know that the contract was coming to an end and I think my fellow MP Saiku Andrews has spoken on this before. It was coming to an end, so I do not know what the cash flows were, who and who have been repaid,” he said. However, Campbell said his main concern was whether the NIS received adequate returns on its investment.

“But I will say, without the benefit of information, what has to be interrogated, I care little about the cronies, the crooked cronies, and some of them their ill-gotten gains have been so well laundered that nobody even looks at them anymore as being corrupt over the last 20, 25 years,” he said. “But what I’m very concerned about is what are the returns to the NIS, if any, of the $400 million?”

On September 17, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo announced on his Facebook page that the Government of Guyana had acquired the Berbice River Bridge for $400 million, about five per cent of the original $8 billion construction cost. The acquisition had been signalled months earlier. In March, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill told the National Assembly that the Government was finalising negotiations for the full acquisition of the bridge.

“…the Berbice Bridge and I don’t want to use this opportunity to make an announcement, I want to inform the House that the Government of Guyana is on its way to finalising all the I’s and crossing the T’s for the ownership of the Berbice River Bridge and based upon the figures I have been looking at, what it will be costing the Treasury for the acquisition of the bridge would be less than if we have to pay toll between now and next year, based upon the figures I’m looking at,” Edghill told the National Assembly. In October 2022, President Irfaan Ali had announced plans for a new Berbice River Bridge and said the Government was discussing the possible acquisition of the existing bridge.

“We are in the process of discussing with the Berbice Bridge Corporation, the possible acquisition of that bridge by the government,” Ali said at the time.

The Government had also indicated that if the acquisition was not finalised by the time the new Demerara River Bridge became operational, the existing Berbice River Bridge crossing would become toll-free simultaneously.

The current Berbice River Bridge was constructed between 2006 and 2008 at a cost of approximately $8 billion. Its financing included loans and equity contributions from several entities, including the State-run National Insurance Scheme and private investors.

According to the ownership structure of the Berbice Bridge Company Inc. (BBCI), National Industrial and Commercial Investments Ltd. (NICIL) holds 10 per cent, the NIS 20.2 per cent, Hand-in-Hand Fire Insurance 10 per cent, New GPC 20 per cent, Queens Atlantic Investment Inc. 20 per cent, and Secure International Finance Co. Limited 20 per cent. The disclosure of the agreements and the financial records surrounding the bridge could therefore provide greater clarity on the original investment structure, the returns to the NIS and the basis on which the Government acquired the asset for $400 million.

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• Berbice Bridge, Christopher Ram, liquidation, Mid-Year Report, white elephant

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