The sale by the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) of two Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) transmission towers to a Bobby Vieira’s Multicultural Communica-tions Inc. was done without public tendering and months after the deal they have not been removed and one has been leased at its present site, sources say.

“In addition to GuySuCo not being aware that these items were sold since February of this year, there was no public tender for these, none. There has also been nothing gazetted so we are not sure what is happening with our assets,” a source at GuySuCo with knowledge of the sale told Stabroek News yesterday.

This newspaper also understands that one of the towers is currently being leased by Vieira to a popular TV cable service provider but it is unclear for how long that arrangement has existed.

The towers are located at Camp Street, in George-town and at Drill, Mahaicony.

“You pay $2.1 million for two towers that would have cost a minimum of $10 million after depreciation and you don’t question anything about the legality of ownership or nothing of that sort? You cannot plead ignorance of the law … Ignorance of the law is no excuse and now we are made to understand that Mr. Vieira is subleasing to [company name provided],” one source said.

Calls to the mobile phone of the owner of the company went unanswered.

Vieira’s close relationship with the APNU+AFC government would immediately raise questions about the transparency of this deal.

Executives GuySuCo on Thursday wrote to Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder questioning  the sale by government holding company, NICIL, of two of its transmission towers  to  Vieira’s Multicultural Communica-tions Inc for a mere $2.1 million when the items were not even vested to NICIL.

“We recently saw a draft Agreement of sale whereby Mr. (Colvin) Heath-London through NICIL is in the process of or perhaps has sold GuySuCo’s Transmission Tower located at Drill, Mahaicony to a company named Multicultural Communica-tions Inc… Again, that property was not vested to NICIL and would be another unlawful act by NICIL,” the letter, seen by this newspaper, stated.

Stabroek News tried reaching NICIL’s acting Chairman, Heath-London, for details about the purchase but calls to his phone went unanswered. Up to last evening, efforts to again contact the acting Chairman were futile.

When Vieira was contacted on Thursday, he said, “That is something you need to get from those folks. There is an agreement on the purchase and so forth but anything else on pricing and anything else, they have the information.”

The sale agreement, dated February 1st, 2019, between NICIL and Multicultural Communica-tions Inc., states that Vieira’s company agreed to purchase two transmission towers, located at 199 Camp Street, South Cummingsburg and Drill, Mahaicony, for $2.1 million. It said that the purchaser agreed to remove the items 14 days after the passing of ownership of the properties.

Bank draft

According to the agreement, NICIL would receive payment by way of bank draft and ownership of the properties would be vested in the name of the purchaser “on publication of the vesting order in the Official Gazette.” This newspaper did not see such a vesting order in Official Gazette publications from the month of February to current.

Checks by Stabroek News at both sites yesterday revealed that both towers are at the current locations. At Drill, the tower stands on land belonging to the corporation and a security guard is paid to oversee the location 24 hours a day.

The location is well kept and persons close by said that periodic visits are “made by persons” although they could not say if they were from GuySuCo or not. It is also unclear who pays the security guard. This newspaper was told that the tower is also periodically serviced.

NICIL and GuySuCo have been engaged in a tussle over company properties and there is also a raging dispute over how monies from a $30 billion bond is being spent. GuySuCo has also raised questions about what NICIL is doing with the scrap metal from the four shuttered estates: Wales, East Demerara, Rose Hall and Skeldon. There are reports that a lot of scrap metal is available and that arrangements have been made for their sale in breach of procurement rules.  The towers would appear to have been considered by NICIL as scrap metal.

The scrap metal issue was also highlighted to Holder, even as NICIL this week advertised a tender in the Guyana Times for sale of scrap metal at the four shuttered estates.

NICIL’s advertisement said that interested bidders could have obtained further information on the process, starting yesterday. “Interested and eligible bidders may obtain further information from the NICIL-SPU Office at the address below or on Tel#220-1384/5 between 8:30 to 16:30 hours from Monday to Friday from June 14 2019,” the notice stated.

The advertisement aside, executives of GuySuCo believe that a large portion of their scrap metal assets have already been sold by NICIL and they are still in the dark on those transactions.

 “We understand that thousands of tonnes of scrap metals were sold through some clandestine arrangements. Additio-nally, 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 Corpora-tion 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 to Holder stated.