The gaming authority to oversee the functioning of casinos is currently in the making, President Bharrat Jagdeo says.
The government is also accepting applications for investments in the Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown area on state land on concessional terms. He said that had the land been advertised for housing the rates would have been different.
At the press conference at the Office of the President on Wednesday, Jagdeo said that the investors in the Kingston hotel project, supposedly to be managed by the Marriott Hotels, have asked that the turning of the sod, which was due to be done by June 26, 2008 be delayed by a month.
The President said he has told the developer (Mike Ahmad of Adam Development and Urbahn Associated) that he would have to disclose at the turning of the sod who the other investors are and the role the Marriott Hotels would be playing.
“It is up to the company to do that,” he said adding that, “there would be full disclosure on all of the investors, who and what they are, and what their plans are.”
Asked about the establishment of the gaming authority, which according to the Gambling Prevention (Amendment) Act would be authorized to recommend casino premises licences and make rules and regulations among other administrative matters for the functioning of casinos,
Jagdeo said that he gathered through the Privatisation Unit that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce were working on establishing the gaming authority. “The gaming authority has to be in place first and then the casino licence will be issued,” he said.
Stabroek News understands that the Princess Hotels Group, the new investors in the Buddy’s International Hotel, was interested in having a casino up and running at its Providence location by year-end.
Asked whether he had envisaged the sale of the Buddy’s Hotel with all its benefits under the memorandum of understanding it signed with the Guyana government to foreign investors a year after it was opened to business, Jagdeo said that in the world of business people could acquire properties and sell them.
Big concern
“Our big concern would be investment. We needed investment. So regardless of who the investor is, the concessions would have been given. If these investors had come on their own and ask to build a hotel they would have had similar concessions to Buddy’s. For me it was the investment,” he said, noting that the country added a new hotel with 250 rooms to the stock, and “a couple hundred people are now working there.” Without the Buddy’s Hotel, he said that Guyana could not have hosted the CWC 2007 matches. “For now it does not matter what happen subsequently because the investment was made,” he added.
He disclosed that the land was basically sold at a concessional value of about $7 million per acre. However, the owner at the time, Omprakash Shivraj could not exercise the option to buy the land until he had finished the investment. He said that once the investment was completed and the hotel was functional then the owner was given the right to own the land.
“Today anyone can argue that they can sell the hotel at a profit but they are not arguing about the investment and the risk they had to take to build the hotel. So I don’t see any variance. The agreement that we had with him (Shivraj) would now be transferred to the new owners,” he said.
Speaking about the incomplete Casique Palace and Banqueting Halls, which had been advanced the sum of $35 million by the government to complete its construction in time for CWC 2007, Jagdeo said that he hopes it would be completed by new investors.
The facility is now up for sale.
Government has not been repaid the advance, he said, but it hopes to get its money back, adding that the assets are way more valuable than the amount of money advanced in order to get the facility up and running for CWC 2007. The facility is 40% complete.
On the land space on Main Street (on which the former national archives was housed) Jagdeo said that the investor, businessman Paul James made a comparable investment deal and not a preferential one with the government for the downtown prime land because it was done at market value.
Explaining that the land was swapped because James’ company had acquired some nearby property, he said the land was priced at about $30 million and James was told that he had to build a comparable investment of about $50 million.
The new building that now houses the national archives, he said, was way above the valuation of the Main Street property. “We had to build a new (facility for the) archives anyway. So it was basically a swap,” he said.
