Paul Cheong appointed Chairman of GuyOil

– Manniram Prashad returns as Chair of Gaming Authority

Accountant Paul Cheong has been appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Guyana Oil Company (GuyOil). The last Chairman of GuyOil was Mark Bender.

Paul Cheong

The other GuyOil Board Members are Shameer Hussain, Abina Moore, Vishnu Bandhu, Akanni Blair, and Dru Bahadur.
Cheong’s appointment took effect on August 27, 2020 and will last for a period of one year, ending on August 26, 2021.
Only recently, concerns were raised over what appeared to be political appointees at GuyOil under the previous David Granger-Administration.
According to reliable sources, a niece of former President Granger is employed as a senior functionary with the State-owned company. This newspaper was told that the current employment of Marketing Manager Jacqueline James is also raising eyebrows. James is the wife of outgoing Police Commissioner Leslie James, who was appointed by the former President in 2018, and was sent on 306 days of accumulated, pre-retirement leave on August 2, 2020. He is scheduled to reach the age of retirement in April 2021.

Manniram Prashad

Other questionable appointments include the hiring of Attorney-at-Law Suzanne Bullen as Company Secretary. Bullen previously worked at the Guyana Gold Board (GGB) as the Legal Officer.
That was until she was implicated in the 2017 money laundering probe surrounding gold dealer Saddiqi “Bobby” Rasul and sent on administrative leave by the Natural Resources Ministry in order to facilitate an investigation.
In fact, it is understood that from a list of current staff at GuyOil, the new Government was able to decipher the appointment of 12 political appointees for whom opportunities were created back in 2017. According to sources, the salaries of these appointees do not commensurate with the work they do or industry averages.
Meanwhile, Cheong was also recently appointed Chairman of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).

Gaming Authority
Meanwhile, former Trade and Tourism Minister Manniram Prashad has been appointed Chairman of the Gaming Authority – a position he had held under the former Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) Administration.
He has replaced Attorney Roysdale Forde.
The other members of the Board of Directors of the Gaming Authority are Abena Moore, Genevieve Blackman, Sase Gunraj, and Mark Conway.
The appointments, as published in the Official Gazette, took effect from August 27, 2020 and will last one year, ending on August 26, 2021.
The Gaming Authority of Guyana was launched on December 1, 2008, and is the Supervisory Authority for betting shops, casinos and lotteries under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act.
In 2019, then Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo had listed the Gaming Authority, under the chairmanship of Forde, as an agency culpable of corrupt actions.
He was referring to reports that the owner of the Sleep-In Hotel franchise was denied his licence to operate a casino after he refused to pay a large sum of money to see his application through.
In 2016, hotelier Clifton Bacchus was denied permission from the Gaming Authority to commence operations, having invested millions into developing a state-of-the-art casino, which remains closed.
Under the then PPP/C Administration, provisions were made for only three casinos to be operational in every region. While the Ramada Princess Casino was functional, the Marriott Hotel had signalled interest along with Sleep-In Hotel.
As part of the requirements, prospective casino owners were asked to construct a hotel with no less than 150 rooms and other requirements to encourage economic activities and they would be granted a licence to operate.
The former Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency, Joseph Harmon had expressed concerns that there has been a surge in the number of betting and gaming shops in Guyana.
But Jagdeo had contended that this is because of the slackness in having companies pay the bribe without making any investments that could provide services or employment to Guyanese.