The Guyana Gaming Authority has not yet started looking at new casino licences, according to its head, Manniram Prashad, even as city hotelier Clifton Bacchus forges ahead with plans for his $20 million SleepIn Hotel and Casino on Church Street and is hoping for a favourable response in a timely manner.
“It is a new board, so we haven’t addressed that [SleepIn’s Casino licence] as yet. We want to know what we inherited from the past Gaming Authority management first but licences will be addressed in due course,” Prashad told Stabroek News yesterday when contacted.
“We are sorting out stuff first and looking at some other issues. It is a systematic process and we are working,” he added.
Bacchus, who had in 2015 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with then President Donald Ramotar for a licence to operate a casino once his hotel met the requisite criteria and formally applied in 2016 and then again 2017, remains hopeful of being granted a licence.
Since last month he has started refurnishing the establishment with slot machines and other equipment.
“We have not gotten a licence but we will continue to plan, hoping for the best,” Bacchus told this newspaper yesterday when contacted.
He lamented the years-long wait, which saw his partners Pasha Global in 2018 repossess gaming machines as it became uncertain about approval.
After three years of applying and two additional application processes, Bacchus moved to the courts seeking to compel the Gaming Authority to “consider” and “determine” an application made by the hotel since 2017 for a Casino Premises Licence and a Casino Operator’s Licence.
In December of last year, Justice Fidela Corbin-Lincoln ruled in the establishment’s favour and ordered the Gaming Authority to consider, process, and determine an application for the two licences.
In court filings seen by Stabroek News, the hotel claimed that though it submitted the last of the documents and materials requested by the authority since February 28th, 2018, it had not been granted the licences, and the staff of the authority had not offered an update or explanation as to the status of its applications.
The application made by SleepIn when it took the Gaming Authority to court, had noted that while the Gaming Prevention Act and its attendant subsidiary legislation do not prescribe a period within which applications are to be considered and determined, the Interpretation and General Clauses Act provides that, in such cases, action must be taken “with all convenient speed.”
In 2015, SleepIn and the Guyana Office for Investment concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) under which the latter pledged, subject to the approval of the president, to facilitate a casino operator’s licence to SleepIn provided that it constructed a minimum of 155 rooms at its hotel.
The hotel claimed to have performed its obligations under the MoU, and on August 6, 2016, applied to the authority to be issued with a casino operator’s licence, paying the required fee of $9 million. This application was refused, reportedly owing to deficiencies in the hotel’s operations.
Having rectified these deficiencies, Sleep-In made another application on April 5th, 2017, once again paying the $9 million fee.
Officials close to the establishment had reasoned that the sloth in processing was calculated and politically motivated because the casino’s principal was represented by PPP executive and now Attorney General Anil Nandlall.
Bacchus hopes that his application will be treated fairly. He had said that he will create 300 jobs for persons at the facility, which had held a recruitment drive in 2016 that saw over 500 applicants.
Training for staff of the casino had already materialized in Suriname and a Turkish Sous-Chef had trained local chefs for work in the kitchen. “I will continue to plan and get things in place so when that time comes I will be ready,” Bacchus said.
