…as uncertainty lingers over sale of GuySuCo scrap metal
Business Minister Dominic Gaskin has distanced the Ministry from reports of billions of dollars’ worth of scrap metal being sold but money not remitted to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
The report emerged earlier this month, with reports that scrap metal worth $3 billion was sold to a mysterious buyer. A GuySuCo source was quoted in sections of the media as saying that the money from the sale was not received by the Corporation.
When asked about these reports on the side-lines of a Berbice ministerial outreach, Gaskin, whose Ministry has responsibility for the scrap metal trade, noted that the deal had nothing to do with his Ministry.
“It has nothing to do with our arrangement, what we normally do is we write to various Government entities that sell scrap metal and we advise them who the registered exporters and dealers are. And we ask them to sell to those persons.”
As part of its plans to downscale the industry, Government has been divesting the Skeldon, East Demerara and Rose Hall estates. A Special Purpose Unit (SPU) from the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited has been coordinating this divestment.
United Kingdom (UK) company, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), was contracted to carrying out valuations of GuySuCo’s assets up for sale and had thereafter invited expressions of interest from potential buyers. In July of last year, Government had said 71 expressions of interest had been received by the State for assets of GuySuCo.
It is understood that companies hailing from as far as Canada, and as near as Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, had expressed interest in purchasing the three remaining sugar estates that are up for sale.
A meeting with these investors and officials from the SPU was held on September 25, 2018. According to the Unit, they would have met with the executives to discuss taxes and permits, and NICIL has been expecting that they would be able to sell the Rose Hall, Skeldon and East Demerara estates by this year.
Initially, 10 expressions of interest were submitted in November but only five companies eventually entered bids. They were Guygulf International Trading Development Industrial and Financial LLC (Nand Persaud and Co Ltd) for Enmore, Skeldon and Rose Hall estates; Liberty Investments Inc for Enmore Estate; Industrial Equipment Sales and Services Incorporation (IESS) for Rose Hall Estate; Kadem Sugars Inc for Rose Hall Estate, and D Rampersaud and Co Ltd for Skeldon Estate.
The scrap metal trade was banned under the previous Administration and this trend had continued, intermittently. The ban on the scrap metal trade came about following persistent complaints about vandalism. There were also issues regarding the management of the trade.
There have been intermissions, such as the three-month reopening of the trade last year. It is understood that the trade has been reopened, but with stricter rules and Scrap metal legislation being drafted.
As a heavily mechanised industry goes, upon closure, the estates in question were expected to have had valuable scrap metal to put on the market. It is understood that the billions of dollars in scrap metal was there for disposal at of 2017 year end.
Now, unanswered questions have been raised over what really happened with the deal and what revenue the State got out of this transaction. Attempts to contact NICIL officials were futile.
