Marriott hotel is born of fraud—Ramjattan

…gives rise to justifiable suspicion of kickbacks

“This whole project is born of fraud and will suffer even worse (humiliation and embarrassment) if allowed to continue in its present configuration.” This is according to Alliance for Change (AFC) Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, who was responding to the confirmation that it was ACE Square Investment Inc who is the private investor in the Marriott Hotel.

Khemraj Ramjattan

ACE Square Investment Limited is a British Virgin Islands (BVI) registered company, owned by two Hong Kong businessmen. “I want to maintain what I had said last year September, when I discovered that Ace Investment was the investor NICIL (National Industrial and Commercial Investment Limited) was talking to and dealing with to get that investment of US$8M.” The AFC Leader said that his party will definitely not be bound by the terms of such a transaction as is presently being conjured up “to complete this unhappily disgraced Marriott.” Ramjattan said, yesterday, that the AFC support for the project will only come if there is a forensic audit done immediately to investigate among so many things, all the players involved including former President Bharrat Jagdeo, Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh and NICIL’s Executive Director, Winston Brassington. Ramjattan recalled that Brassington had, last September, denied that there was any negotiation with a BVI Incorporated investor on the Marriott hotel. “Why then did he lie…What does he have to say now?” According to Ramjattan US$19.5M, “of public monies must not be dealt with by one who is so inexact with the facts…This kind of conduct must be penalized.” Ramjattan said that “it is misconduct like this which gives rise to justifiable suspicions that this project will see huge, illegitimate benefits and kickbacks to these local players.” “What also makes it smell fishy too is that there is no justification for a two-thirds proprietorship for inputting only US$8M when NICIL is inputting US$19.5M… Why this short changing of the public for the private?” According to the party Leader, “This so-called working class socialist government is now funding the bourgeoisie/capitalist. How ironic, what a somersault…This hardly adds up…We the taxpayers are going to lose out.” He noted, too, that not wanting to be pessimistic, if the fate of the hotel is not as successful as Government is propagandizing; the taxpayers would have made a major loss of a sum which could have been better spent on so many other priority issue. Ramjattan was adamant that the evidence of successes in the hotel industry is not there, “not from what is happening with Tower Hotel.” He added, too, “Quite frankly even Princess Hotel is struggling…I just hope its (Marriott) fate is not similar to that other project architectured by Jagdeo, the Skeldon Sugar Factory.”

The Marriott Hotel under construction in Kingston.

Over the weekend Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI) announced that ACE Square Investment Inc is the investor and its affiliate, Ace Square Management Ltd will operate the Entertainment Complex. AHI is the special purpose company created by Brassington to build and own the Marriott Hotel. ACE Square Investment Inc now has controlling interest (67 per cent) of AHI. Hong Kong businessmen, Victor How Chung Chan, and Xu Han have been identified as the shareholders of the company. NICIL has already injected its US$19.5M, a loan of US$15.5M and an investment of US$4M which it had committed to the project. The Marriott Hotel has been mired in controversy from its inception firstly with the rerouting of the sewerage system before any works had begun. Prior to the NICIL money, Government had given Courtney Benn Contracting Services Limited a US$1M contract for the rerouting of the sewerage system in the Kingston locale. That contract was pulled after more than US$700,000 was paid over.  It was then given to an overseas company, for a further US$2M. AHI also leased the prime seven acres of shorefront property on which the hotel rests for a measly US$120 ($24,000) per month with the option to buy.