-call for probe of divestment of assets
Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) managers have appealed to Agriculture Minister Noel Holder to seek the urgent intervention of President David Granger to immediately remove Colvin Heath-Venture from overseeing the divestment of its assets, while accusing him of pursuing a “vendetta” against the company.
In a letter to Holder on Thursday, the managers also asked that an investigation be launched into the operations of the Special Purpose Unit (SPU) that was set up by the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) to divest the company’s assets, while expressing their concern about the lack of information on proceeds from “clandestine” deals.
The letter, seen by Stabroek News, is the latest volley in the bitter power struggle between NICIL/SPU and GuySuCo and it came just short of a week since President Granger visited the Albion Estate and told workers there that government would be seeking to resolve the tensions between the two entities, while ensuring that the company gets much needed funding in a timely manner to meet its needs.
“It should not have to come to that—where you have to ask the president to leave his work and intervene,” one executive told this newspaper while confirming the correspondence. “We are professionals with decades of service and are not used to this kind of [thing]. Which other country would you find this nonsense happening in? That you would have to go to the President himself? Government organisations are supposed to get their acts together. Are we working to better this country or to make government look bad? Come on man, this should never have to come to this!”
“It is embarrassing to us to have the president have to leave running the country to travel to Berbice to hear first-hand what is happening. A decision was made for the recapitalisation of GuySuCo. NICIL borrowed $30 billion-not $30 or $300-… which has to be paid back with interest over a time. And yet you have personalities, not policies, keeping back that process. We must look like the laughing stock of the Caribbean,” the executive lamented.
Asked at a news conference yesterday if government was likely to intervene to resolve the impasse between the two entities, Director-General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon said the relationship is engaging the attention of Cabinet. He noted that although the advice has been to “keep these exchanges out of the media and let us deal with them in house, sometimes you look up at the newspapers and there it is.”
Harmon added that Cabinet has already given some guidance on the matter and “will certainly look at it again.”
Asked if there is a “real” problem between the Ministers of Agriculture and Finance, he said, “What you might very well be seeing is the effect or the impact of what is happening at the other level, that is, at the level of the boards… NICIL is a board in itself, that’s a company and so is GuySuCo and so from time to time the minister will give guidance… call in the boards for conversations and so on but you cannot, once you establish a board, give it day-to-day directions. The boards have to find ways of getting [their] work done and the government will give broad policy direction from time-to-time and this really is the job of the ministers… but they will not intervene in the day-to-day management of these two companies.”
Discontinued
In their letter to Holder, GuySuCo’s manager asked him to seek an intervention from President Granger and Cabinet to end what they called “the onslaught of abuse” against them and the company.
In particular, they demanded that contract of Heath-London and the SPU be “discontinued immediately” relative to the divestment process and that a credible process, agency and professionals be appointed in their stead.
They also seek an investigation into the operations of NICIL/SPU in the divestment of GuySuCo’s assets, while charging that from October, 2017 until June, 2019, they have failed to fulfil their mandate to divest the corporation’s assets in order to ensure funding for a speedy recapitalisation and execution of a new GuySuCo plan. “The SPU was established to divest GuySuCo’s assets from the estates – Skeldon, Rose Hall, Enmore and Wales – as a result of the ‘State Paper on the Future of the Sugar Industry’ that was approved in May, 2017. It has now been almost two years and even though the agency has not fulfilled its mandates, the Ministry of Finance has not held it accountable,” the letter states.
The managers also note that in keeping with the State Paper, a major part of the SPU’s mandate was to provide funds for GuySuCo from the divestment of assets of Skeldon, Rose Hall, Enmore and Wales Estates. “The entity was mandated to arrange and conduct the privatisation and divestment of the former Estates that was supposed to be completed by June 30, 2018. It was not created to manage GuySuCo and the three remaining Estates (Uitvlugt, Blairmont and Albion) or to benefit from the proceeds of the sale of GuySuCo assets,” it added.
‘Clandestine arrangements’
They further questioned the disposal of some of the company’s assets by NICIL/SPU, while charging that “through some clandestine arrangements” scrap iron was sold but they are yet to learn the details of those transactions. “Additionally, we understand that tractors, punts and other valuable field and factory equipment were cut up and sold as scrap. This is most hurtful to us as managers of GuySuCo, as we know the struggles the corporation and its employees had to go through to acquire those assets which are now being treated with scant regard. Minister it is unbearable,” the letter states.
“We understand also that lands and buildings have been sold and leased. To date we have not received information from NICIL-SPU on any of the aforementioned transactions nor have we received the proceeds,” it adds.
And while SPU has secured some $30 billion in funding for the corporation in the interim as it divests the company’s assets, the managers raised concern over the unit extracting tens of millions in fees without explanation.
“We would also like to inform you that the SPU has deducted over G$50M or thereabouts, as management fees from releases to GuySuCo from the G$30B Bond which is unlawful considering the above duties and responsibilities and yet the Ministry of Finance has not held the agency accountable,” the letter notes.
The managers also told Holder that the SPU doled out over $250 million in payments to PricewaterhouseCoopers for the conducting of a valuation process for four vested estates but only the factories were valuated and “yet the Ministry of Finance has not held the NICIL-SPU accountable.”
‘Aided and Abetted’
On the latter point, the letter suggested that Heath-London seems to have the support of the Ministry of Finance and Finance Minister Winston Jordan.
The managers contend that NICIL-SPU is being allowed to deliberately delay disbursements of finances to GuySuCo, which has severely affected the progress of the corporation’s strategic plan. “The acting CEO for NICIL-SPU decides who he will respond to at GuySuCo and when he will respond to GuySuCo’s correspondences and communications requesting finances, etc.,” the managers note, while adding that this “unprofessional” disposition has resulted in delayed payments to suppliers, wages and salaries and procurement of supplies, etc., for almost two years.
In that time, they lament, the Ministry of Finance has done nothing to address the situation.
They also reminded that NICIL/SPU had made a complaint of breaking and entering to the Beterverwagting Police Station in 2018 that almost resulted in managers from GuySuCo being arrested. They said the report was due to managers and staff of GuySuCo entering the corporation’s property at its LBI Head Office Compound, yet the Ministry of Finance did nothing to address the situation.
“…We hold the firm view that Mr. Heath-London is not acting only on his own behalf but is being aided and abetted by the Ministry of Finance or some other great force…,” the letter adds.
The managers said they based their belief on the fact that neither the Finance Minister nor the Ministry have taken any steps to address the issues they have raised, while Heath-London has been promoted to the position of acting CEO of NICIL and more recently Chairman of Skeldon Energy Inc. (SEI).
They said that they are of the firm view that due to the questionable manner in which NICIL-SPU conducts the business around the four vested estates, an environment of distrust and an unhealthy investment climate in the sugar industry has been created.
