Odle playing games with GTT shares money – financial analyst

Financial analyst Ramon Gaskin is of the firm belief that Chairman of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), Dr Maurice Odle should be taken to the courts to reveal what really happened with the US million GTT shares.
Since he is “playing games,” Gaskin said, a member of the public or the Opposition should go to the court and get a court order against NICIL or Odle instructing that the report on the shares be released for public scrutiny.
He stated that those responsible for disclosing the elements of the reports continue to shirk their responsibility without anyone holding them accountable while adding that the members of the board are using the bureaucracy of the system to shy away from what they really do not want to say.

“They don’t want to say that they don’t want to reveal the report. Let me tell you, Odle doesn’t need the board to reveal critical information. He is playing the game of who could reveal and who can’t reveal but the whole nation know that Odle could reveal it if he wants,” he charged.
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has also questioned why the report has not yet been made public since “it is clear as day that NICIL can release the findings.”
“I don’t understand why they don’t release the information,” he said, urging them to make the disclosure quickly.
However, when this newspaper contacted NICIL for an update on a letter sent to the unit for clarification on the transaction, an official stated that the letter should be in the hands of Chairman Dr Maurice Odle, who would furnish a response.
When asked whether Odle is the person to respond on the issue, the official said yes. But, Odle had told Guyana Times that he is not the person to answer the questions—instead it was the board’s duty. Notably, Odle is head of that board.
Critics are stating that the transaction shows that there is little to no accountability or transparency in the APNU/AFC administration. There have also been calls for similar matters to be brought before the House for scrutiny.
Gaskin stated that despite the Government’s promise to be transparent, the case of the missing GTT shares along with several contracts have not been laid in the public domain, shows otherwise.
“There are a number of contracts that we want to see. Let us read it for ourselves. We have eyes and we can read English, we don’t need them to tell us what it says. Show us,” Gaskin asserted.
Government spokesperson Raphael Trotman had disclosed that Minister of State Joseph Harmon was able to recover documents, which revealed that the monies were paid.
However, NICIL quickly slapped it down, stating that Guyana’s former Ambassador to China David Dabydeen had facilitated the US$5 million debt waiver with Datang, the Chinese company, on the grounds that it was not granted the same minority protection rights enjoyed by NICIL (that is, two, instead of one, representatives on the GT&T Board of Directors).
NICIL had sold the Government shares in GT&T for US$30 million of which US$25 million was received at the signing of the agreement. However, the outstanding money, which should have been paid by the end of December 2015, has not been discovered.