…US$5M
Your Eyewitness loves “who dunnits”..mysteries with all kinds of red herrings are introduced to throw the Police (and readers) off the scent from figuring out “who did it”. He’d read all those Hardy Boys – and even his sisters Nancy Drews then the Perry Mason court potboilers, like “Case of the Missing Button” – back in his dissolute youth. And now he was getting that same tingly feeling as he read the daily releases on what he decided was “The Case of the Missing US million.” That US million could buy a whole lotta buttons!
What your Eyewitness absorbed from his “detective immersion”, is to solve a mystery, you gotta start at the very beginning. So with the GTT shares…where do we start? From 1990 when the People’s National Congress (PNC) gave away 80 per cent of our Guyana Telephone Company (GTC) in a “fire sale” for US million to a newly-formed company ATN? GTC had enough receivables (bills that had to be paid) to cover that US million and then some!
And to rub salt into the wound, ATN also received a monopoly on telephone service for Guyana for 20 years. Which we still can’t throw off even though GTT’s mega profits from Guyana within the first decade generated so much profits, ATN was able to finance its expansion in several other jurisdictions – including the USA. There ought to be a CoI to find out which high PNC Government officials benefited from the giveaway.
Anyhow, the PNC did retain 20 per cent of GTT’s shares – and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Government decided to sell it off after 2011 – evidently to help fund the Marriott Hotel. Dozens of advertisements were placed in domestic and foreign newspapers but no serious takers. And through the good offices of Ambassador to China David Dabydeen, the PPP sold the 20 per cent shares off for US million in 2012 to Chinese telecom giant Datang. So far, so good, no? No. The fly in the ointment was the buyer paid US million up front and agreed to pay the balance in two years. Kinda like what Tony Yassin and Glen Lall did on Guyana Stores.
But while everyone has publicly spoken and written about the past-due million for the last four years…and Harmon had gone to China to collect it and then said he might have to go to court to do so, up comes Minister Trotman who claims the money’s been already paid!! Is he trying to embarrass Harmon?
And then the Muckraker makes heavy going about the company mentioned by former President Ramotar as the buyer not being Datang.
Has the Mook ever heard about Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV’s)?
…debt
As April draws to a close, your Eyewitness usually gets all gloomy and crotchety …but this year it’s different! Why? Well the source of his annual angst – the GRA – had just announced a radical new approach to past due taxes. Every year, your Eyewitness’ accountant (well…actually his accountant brother who took payment in beer) would file his taxes and he’d have to shell out a pretty penny to the GRA. Which could’ve been better spent on the aforementioned beer to stimulate the economy.
But since your Eyewitness was always short for cash, he’d end up paying his taxes late – and be slapped with such a draconian late-payment penalty as to make his head spin. But in explaining why the tax-debt owned by Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) didn’t earn late payment penalties, the GRA adumbrated the new policy that made your Eyewitness’ heart soar!
Henceforth, when you owe taxes, after the first year, it will be DISCOUNTED rather than earn a penalty!! The GRA would now be owing your Eyewitness yearly!
…”political investors”
OK…the Govt’s shelling out $160 million just to FINISH OFF the Durban Park Jubilee Coliseum. But we’re still in the dark how much the “political investors” – in the inimitable words of Minister Trotman – invested. Or who’re they.
Their modesty’s quite fetching.
