Home News After years of waiting: US$5M from sale of GTT shares to Chinese...
Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has disclosed that the entire US$30 million for the sale of the Guyana Government’s 20 per cent shares in the then Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) to a Hong Kong firm has been paid over in full, along with interest.
Back in 2012, the then Guyana Government had sold its 20 per cent shares in GT&T to Hong Kong Golden Telecom Company Limited (HKGT) to the tune of US$30 million. However, it was agreed in the deal with the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) that US$25 million would be paid over at the time of the sale, and the remaining US$5 million would be paid within two years, but the Chinese company did not meet that deadline.
During a recent press conference, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo confirmed that the money has since been paid over in full by the Chinese company.
“We sold the shares for US$30 million…and US$5 million was [outstanding]… The facts are now that all US$30 million has been paid, and because of the court decision, another US$2.2 million. So, US$32.2 million have been paid so far, because the US$2.2 million is in interest, and they still have to pay some additional interests – several million dollars more.”
“So, it has been fully paid, the entire sale sum, and we have received now interest on some of the outstanding money,” the Vice President indicated.
The interest Jagdeo mentioned stemmed from court proceedings filed by the state to recover the outstanding sums of money from the Chinese company.
After the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) regime took office in 2015, it had committed to go after the US$5 million owed, and took over negotiations with HKGT, which is a subsidiary of Datang Telecom International Technology.
This saw then Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, embarking on his controversial trip to China. He was accompanied by NICIL’s Legal Counsel at the time, Natalia Seepersaud.
Following that trip, it was disclosed that the Minister of State was able to retrieve some documents which show the US$5 million was paid, and as such, efforts were launched to track down to whom, how, where and when the payment was made, since no record of payment was made.
While, the Coalition Government did not provide any details about the information given to it by the Chinese company, it was hinted that the payment was made under the previous administration.
However, the then People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration had long maintained that the US$5 million was still outstanding to Guyana. In fact, when contacted shortly after the revelation by the Coalition regime, former President Donald Ramotar, under whose leadership the transaction was conducted, had indicated that he is not aware of Datang making a payment on the outstanding amount. However, he noted that if any such payment was made, it would have been paid to NICIL, with whom the Datang subsidiary had the transaction.
Former Head of NICIL, Winston Brassington, had subsequently stated that efforts were still afoot to recoup the money.
However, after two years of negotiations with the Chinese company failed and there was no trace of any money being paid, the Coalition took Hong Kong Golden Telecom as well as GTT to court in 2018 to recover the outstanding sum owed to the State.
Then in 2020, the High Court had ordered GTT to pay NICIL some US$3.2 million. This sum was the dividends earning on the 4125 GTT shares that HKGT had obtained from the sale.
The Court had ordered that GTT pay all future dividends on the shares sold to the Chinese company until the remaining amount is paid.
It was reported that, based on the court ruling, NICIL would recover more than double the initial US$5 million that was owed to it due to interest payments set out by the court. (G8)
