Brassington should go to jail – APNU’s Harmon
While the government is unable to find $120 million more to meet salary increases for workers of Guyana Power and Light, it is finding billions of dollars to plug into a Marriott hotel it has failed to justify.
It is a situation that Parliamentarian Joe Harmon calls criminal, and wants Winston Brassington, the man who presides over both GPL and the Marriott project, to “go to jail.”
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…and gives them billion$$$ in contracts
Government may have been in a serious conflict of interest situation when it retained shares in two companies it privatized and afterwards doled out contracts to them to the tune of billions of dollars.
New GPC boss Dr. Ranjisinghi Ramroop
Former President Bharrat Jagdeo
Former Health Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy
The two companies are Hand In Hand Trust Corporation Inc. and New GPC Inc.
In the case of New GPC, a company that has been under scrutiny over the billions of dollars it received to deliver pharmaceuticals and other related supplies to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and Ministry of Health, Government retained 10 per cent of the company…shares that were worth $76M.
In Hand In Hand Trust, the 10 per cent shares were worth $25M, according to the 2010 report of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Inc. (NICIL), a state-owned company that manages Government assets and which has been under fire for some questionable deals.
Several senior government officials, including the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, and Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, sit on NICIL’s board.
Both are also part of the Cabinet of Ministers which approves government contracts.
The fact that government in 2010 gave its no objections for New GPC to supply over $1B in drugs and other supplies knowing it has shares in that company without allowing suppliers a chance to tender bids is a serious matter as government officials clearly were in a conflict of interest situation, said official sources.
The drugs contracts of which New GPC has been benefiting have been blasted by other suppliers who felt that they were deliberately sidelined from getting any of the lucrative business and by Members of Parliament from the Opposition side who said that the entire situation begs for a full investigation.
Government has been insisting that the contracts are all above board when they were first approved, in the first instance, by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), the body that oversees state contracts.
However, even on the NPTAB, there are government officials from the Ministry that sit in a special sub-committee to analyse the bids.
In the Ministry of Health, which would order the drugs, it would not be unusual for the Permanent Secretary, who handles payments, to sit on the NPTAB.
In the case of Hand in Hand Trust, the company was privatized and a significant portion was sold to the brother of NICIL’s head, Winston Brassington, under still questionable circumstances.
Brassington had handled the sale for his brother.
If cat can thief fry fish, why people can't thief money?
AFC is now worried that the government is building a new hotel while one of their largest financial supporter will be left with a run down and cockroach infested hotel. Ha Ha.
AFC wants Guyana to return to the donkey cart days of the PNC. It is no wonder that they consider and quote donkey cart Carl Greendige as a financial expert.
How abou the AFC provide us with the finding of the Bush Doctor election funds scandal. Guess what, they completely refuse to investigate their own. They duck and run for cover when asked about this matter.
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