APNU/AFC’s Ocean View heist – a global poster child for corruption

Dear Editor,
David Granger in his continued squatting in the presidency took a rare time-off from his home last Friday to commission the former Ocean View Hotel as an infectious disease hospital. As he travelled to and from the Ocean View site, he passed supporters gathered in front of his old home who mistakenly thought Granger would have distributed $50,000 each for COVID-19 relief.
He did not stop; he did not acknowledge them. The last five years exposed the PNC (APNU/AFC) and exposed David Granger. The PNC has not changed its stripes – its DNA is that of dictatorship.
Their continued effort to thief the March 2 elections has united the whole world in a brutal rebuke. Granger himself has shown unambiguously he is more comfortable presiding over subjects as an emperor. As the PNC and Granger continue to build on their shameful credentials as dictators and emperors, they have accumulated a record sheet of corruption that ranks in the Caribbean region and around the world as some of the most brazen, barefaced corruption deals ever.
They now call the rehabilitated Ocean View Hotel the National Infectious Disease Hospital. The soundness of a policy for a dedicated National Infectious Disease Hospital is questionable. There never was a policy discussion for a stand-alone infectious disease hospital.
I will discuss the pros and cons of such a hospital another time. However, note that HIV, TB, malaria and other infectious diseases responsible for thousands of deaths in Guyana never catapulted Guyana towards a national infectious disease hospital.
We did have a hospital dedicated to leprosy once, in Mahaica, and over time, that hospital was abandoned, as we integrated leprosy treatment into the general medical and public health sector. We also once had a TB hospital, in West Demerara, which was also closed and that facility was developed into the West Demerara Regional Hospital. The integration of these diseases into the overall health sector was consistent with global policy directives. Guyana today is moving in a different direction from other countries. That is what dictatorships do.
But whether or not it is a sound policy, the establishment of the so-called National Infectious Disease Hospital will forever be known as the Ocean View heist. It already ranks among the Caribbean region’s most brazen corruption deals. In fact, for Guyana and Caricom, the Ocean View heist will stand forever as a poster child for corruption. When first announced, the Ocean View Hotel was going to be rehabilitated to house persons with or exposed to COVID-19, with a price tag of about $250 million. Then that price tag mysteriously bloated to $1 billion.
At the commissioning, Granger had no idea what the cost was. Volda Lawrence announced, however, a new price tag for the rehabilitation – $1.6 billion or US$8 million. Lawrence, who like Mr Granger is a squatter, announced she does not have the final cost, that the Ministry of Finance has those details. How are you commissioning something you call the National Infectious Disease Hospital and you do not know the details of the cost, just that the rehabilitation has now exceeded $1.6 billion?
Now the story has morphed into even more bizarre shenanigans. The hospital is not yet ready to take in patients because the $1.6 billion rehabilitation cost is just for the construction cost; new money has to be found to equip the hospital. The nation is now warned that the cost of retrofitting the building to serve as a hospital will be in excess of three times the rehabilitation cost – that is about $4.8 billion.
How do they know that? Is there a list of the equipment and a cost estimate done? Or, as feared by many of us, have they given out a contract for the acquisition of this equipment? When this cost is added, the overall construction and equipping cost would be in excess of $6.6 billion.
The new Linden Hospital was built during the Jagdeo presidency, when I was Minister of Health, at a fraction of the cost for the Ocean View thing. Note also that the new Inpatient Building at the GPHC, for construction and equipping, was a fraction of the rehabilitation cost for the Ocean View thing. The Public Health Lab building and equipment was a fraction of the cost that is being attributed as the cost for this Ocean View thing. And note also that when the Japanese Government built the new New Amsterdam Hospital during the Jagdeo presidency, the cost was also a fraction of what this Ocean View thing is costing.
With such an enormous cost to rehabilitate the building and now must be incurred for equipment, taxpayers’ money is being spent without any tendering. All of this huge sum of money is spent on sole-sourcing contracts. The stench that this Ocean View heist has caused is about to get even more stinky. We have now learnt that the building was in receivership and the Government has not entered into any agreement to procure the building.
Those discussions are now taking place. So outside of the almost $7 billion expenses for rehabilitation and equipment, there is also the charge for procuring the Ocean View property. This part of the deal is shrouded in secrecy.
Wait, this thing stinks so much, one would think it could not get more stinky. Well, hold your breath. There was never any plan developed to staff this new infectious disease hospital. With already chronic shortages of doctors and nurses and other staff in the existing hospitals, where is the staff coming from? The hospital started out simply as an emergency need to accommodate quarantined persons. It now has morphed into a hospital and is not likely to be housing patients for a while.
Because there was no discussion, no consultation, the availability of other accommodation for quarantining purposes was never explored. A number of possibilities exist, but were never explored. Instead, Guyana has committed to an enormous cost, one of the largest ever in the health sector, without any tendering.
While we are at it, how come we could have spent almost $7 billion to rehabilitate a building, but we abandoned the construction of the Specialty Hospital which was going to cost less and which was going to be funded by the EXIM Bank of India through a loan to a private company which would have operated it as a BOT – Build, Operate and Transfer – arrangement. This deal stands brazenly as a poster child for corruption. This deal must be investigated. There must be a Commission of Inquiry.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Leslie Ramsammy