‘The government’s objective while securing its investment is not so much getting a high rate of return as it is creating development opportunities, creating a world class hotel that will help to drive our travel and tourism, and create jobs for a few hundred Guyanese. This hotel will allow us to host conferences and do things that we have not done before. It will help to raise the bar in hospitality in Guyana. Already other hotels are investing in anticipation of this project’
Head of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) Winston Brassington spoke with Stabroek News’ Johann Earle recently on the controversial US$58 million Marriott Hotel project. He outlined several aspects of the investment and sought to clear the air on a number of what he called “misrepresentations” in the press regarding the nature of the investment and the structure of the financing. The following is a full transcript of the interview.
Stabroek News (SN): There was a public advertisement for an equity investor in Marriott. Surely the procurement rules must require that at the end of a bidding process that the investor is identified… this must surely have happened already otherwise they have single-sourced someone.
Winston Brassington (WB): Let me begin by saying that this advertisement which was published in early 2012 in the newspapers was not the first advertisement where we sought parties to work with us in developing this public-private partnership. We started this process in early 1999 when we put out an advertisement inviting anyone who was willing to partner with us in developing this public-private partnership in an open and transparent manner. Our privatisation rules provide that if after you’ve advertised you haven’t received any expressions you can negotiate
