…“Bond”, not “Loan”
This story on the “Bond” issued by the SPU for GuySuCo is getting “curiouser and curiouser”. If it weren’t for the tragedy of 7000 fired sugar workers and their families going starving in the streets, your Eyewitness would swear the “Mad Hatter” would be making his appearance any minute!! But then it could be the Mad Hatter has taken the form of the SPU’s Heath-London, since the latter insists on making the same kind of short, nonsensical remarks and riddles as the former!
Facing sharp criticisms from the Minister of Agriculture, the CEO of GuySuCo, Opposition Leader (imagine that!) and every first-year finance student, Heath- London called a press conference to announce that the four sugar estates on the block would be sold by “early next year”!! He says he has 14 prospective buyers; but, for some reason, the ones from India and further afield from the previously announced “78 buyers” appear to have dropped out. We only have Trinis, Guyanese, Canadians!
Your Eyewitness wonders what made the others balk. Feting the 14 hot prospects at the newly refurbished LBI staff compound (without a paying bar, however!!) Heath-London confessed: “The potential bidders questioned whether they are being asked to buy essentially scrap metal”!! Well!! So how did the aptly named fella from the expensive accounting firm of Price Waterhouse – Baghaloo, who’d done the valuations — respond? He said he understood the concern of the bidders on factories that has been closed for a long time. But, obviously, the Government that had closed those factories never did!!
Baghaloo explained that Government was now turning cartwheels to have the factories up and running again!! How bumbling can this PNC Government be? Their own CoI had advised to keep the entire operation going, and then put the factories on the block…and now they’ve come a full circle!! All because they wanted to teach PPP supporters in the industry a “lesson”! But most of the riddles were on the “bond”.
First of all, why even issue a bond when the factories will be sold in a matter of months? And they will still have to pay interest for five years!! Secondly, was it a “bond” or “loan”? Very few bonds are so short-term, for starters. Then secondly, unlike loans, once you sell bonds, there are no conditions bondholders can invoke. All you gotta do is pay the interest on time, and at the end, pay off the principal! So, what’s all this about a bondholder protesting GuySuCo using the funds to pay off interest on other loans??
And how much is it costing the SPU to “have the closed factories” running again??
And is it coming from the bond funds?
…“Operation Restore Order”
It was right out of the Police playbook from the days of the “Freedom Fighters”. A massive force of 220 Police ranks swooped down on Agricola and Upper Bourda in the wee hours of the morning, as the cock was crowing thrice. They arrested 29 persons while seizing several motorcycles, phones, drugs and “gun parts”. Seems that the shakeup in the Police top brass has directly led to this shakedown in the “hood”.
But was there “probable cause”? Like the citizens of these ‘hoods — and the PNC then in Opposition — your Eyewitness is very upset at the violation of the rights of these citizens, who no doubt were mostly choir boys. That’s what Granger said when he attended the funeral of one young man who’d been killed when Police returned fire during a raid they conducted in Agricola, after they were tipped off about a robbery being planned.
Your Eyewitness demands a CoI into this assault on the civil rights of Guyanese citizens!
Right, bannuhs?
…famous last words
Cautioning the Government about borrowing like there was no tomorrow, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo was told there is “Nothing to worry about!” by Finance Minister Winston Jordan.
Eerily reminiscent of the response by the captain of the Titanic when warned about an iceberg ahead!!
