The report of a special investigation into the financial operations and functioning of the Guyana Gold Board (GGB) has been released, and it is urging major changes in the manner which country is conducting its trade in the yellow metal.A report of the operations of the Guyana Gold Board has recommended changes in the manner in which Guyana trades its gold on the world market.Ram & McRae was appointed by the Ministry of Finance to carry out a special investigation into the financial operations and functioning of the Guyana Gold Board.According to the report prepared by auditing firm, Ram and McRae, between the years 2012-2014, which were reviewed, GGB racked up losses $10.1B from its trading.Of this,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, GGB recorded a gross loss of $9.7B (96.4%) in 2013 compared with a gross loss of $281.4M in 2012 and $79.6M in 2014.The main reasons for the losses, officials say, is because GGB held onto gold it bought hoping that world prices would go up back. It would have brought much of the gold in 2013 when the prices fell from US$1,900. It is just around US$1,240 per ounce now.Under the terms of reference,Cheap Soccer Jerseys China, Ram & McRae was required to carry out procedures in areas such as governance, compliance with laws and regulations, contracts with related parties and internal control and financial systems. Ram & McRae was also required to recommend statutory, legal or organisational changes and a revised business model.The Guyana Gold Board was established in 1991 under the Guyana Gold Board Act Cap. 66:01 primarily to carry on the business of trading in gold and regulate the purchase and sale of gold in Guyana.Under the Act, all gold produced in Guyana must be sold to GGB or an authorised dealer.The board issues annual licences to a number of dealers to allow them to purchase, possess, sell and export gold. The purchase price for gold is fixed twice per day based on the price by the London Bullion Market Association.Because of the significance of the loss in 2013,Cheap China Jerseys, the auditor carried out an extensive month by month analysis for the year to determine the source of the year’s loss.According to the report,Cheap Jerseys, matters taken into account were the opening and closing inventory; purchases and sales of gold and price movements.That exercise shows that losses as a result of the fall in gold prices amounted to $9.994B for the three years while other stock losses and exchange gains totaled $345M and $624.1M respectively.From inquiries, the auditor concluded that GGB seemed uncertain how to respond to changing market conditions.The report noted that the losses could be blamed because GGB maintained an unusually high level of gold inventories even as prices continued to decline.“We believe that the Gold Board,Wholesale NBA Jerseys, in consultation with the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Guyana, should consider the appropriate level of gold stock which the Gold Board should maintain with the balance held by the Bank of Guyana or sold.”At May 2015,Cheap Jerseys NFL China, the Gold Board owed the Ministry of Finance $8.731B for advances received in September 2012.“At the same date, the balance on the Gold Board’s current account with the Bank of Guyana was an overdraft of $8.820B, making a total of $17.552B. At the same date, the Gold Board had gold valued at weighted average cost of $7.775B which exceeded market value by approximately $72M.”GGB said that it does not seem that the Gold Board would be able in the foreseeable future to discharge its obligations to the Ministry of Finance or to liquidate its overdraft with the Bank of Guyana. “Moreover, the Gold Board Act is silent on how permanent losses are to be dealt with and consideration needs to be given for a re capitalisation of the Gold Board.”

Chief Executive Officer of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth,Wholesale China Jerseys, has explained that the sum of monies was increased for the sluices in Wakenaam and Leguan because of the expanded scope of works that are needed.Kaieteur News recently reported that a $20 million contract was awarded for the construction of a drainage structure (sluice) at Amersfort, Wakenaam, while $35 million was awarded for the construction of a similar drainage structure (sluice) in Waterloo, Leguan.However,Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping, it was later reported that the money for both these contracts has been increased from $20 million to $25.8 million, while the budgeted $35 million has also been increased to $42.6 million.In responding to queries from this newspaper yesterday, Wordsworth said that in Wakenaam, the old structure is severely eroded and based on technical assessment the structure will have to be shifted inwards to safeguard against erosion,Cheap China Jerseys, while additional revetment works will need to be added in order to secure the structure unto the sea defense.“There was an increased scope of works which was put out in the bid that went out to all the bidders that participated in the process,Cheap NFL Jerseys,” Wordsworth said.As it relates to Leguan,Wholesale Jerseys Online, he said that there is an old structure at the site which has not been functioning for many years. However, he added that farmers are calling for the NDIA to also resuscitate another structure west of Waterloo and thus there is expanded scope of works that will examine and resuscitate the old structure.Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud explained that monies are allocated based on the scope of works originally proposed but this can change when additional works are found to be done.He added that in the National Procurement process, when a contract goes out to tender, it goes with an engineer’s estimate. This is where the in-house engineer would come up with the projected cost based on the factors available and what the project intends to do. It was noted that the engineers estimate is catered for in the budget.But when the bidders go through the competitive bidding process several persons would have tendered and the lowest bid would be between $5 million and $6 million, above the engineers estimate.This,Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping, too, he said, would be a reason for the change in some contract costs.

Alliance for Change Leader, Raphael Trotman, who has previously been critical of having Geeta Singh-Knight sit on the Board of Directors of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), is now lashing out at the President for the way he has defended her position there.Geeta Singh-KnightHead of State, Bharrat Jagdeo,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, recently told media operatives that it was a spate of bad decisions that led to the collapse of? insurance giant Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) Guyana but its then CEO Singh-Knight still has, “significant skills,Cheap Jerseys Wholesale, frankly speaking.”Trotman is of the opinion that this position adopted by Jagdeo wreaks of “high class lawlessness to defend a bad decision when thousands lost everything.”The AFC leader said that his party is disappointed that after being allowed to preside over the collapse of CLICO, “the loss of hundreds of millions of pension funds and other medical and insurance benefits based on so-called bad investments, that President Jagdeo who boasts of being a good mathematician, would persevere with someone like Singh-Knights at GUYSUCO and not see the value of a Dr Harold Davis at GuySuCo.”In January this year, two senior officials of the Corporation GuySuCo were sent packing following a disastrous production performance last year and amidst clamours that there were excesses in the corporation.Director of GuySuCo’s Agriculture Research, Dr. Harold Davis, was one of the officials sent off by the Board of Directors.According to Trotman, the decisions and calculations by the President,Wholesale NFL Jerseys China, “are just not adding up…He is practising jumbie economics.”Trotman said that while Singh-Knights may have her qualities, in any other country in the world she would have felt compelled to take a self-imposed sabbatical from the corporate world.“Look at how GuySuCo is collapsing nationally….First it was CLICO (Guyana), now sugar is in crisis after spending almost US$300M on the Skeldon Sugar factory and neglecting the workers.”He suggested that “any school child who can add two and two can tell you that hundreds of millions are being lost through theft, corruption and waste because of the bad decisions being made by the President.”Trotman reiterated, “You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time…The President has every reason to be afraid of the AFC winning power because we will deal with the corruption condignly from top to bottom.”President Bharrat Jagdeo who held a press briefing on Friday prior to departing for London, stated that the fact was that several bad investments were made by CLICO Guyana and was asked whether he thought it was a good idea to have her sit on the GuySuCo Board and he said that she has, “significant skills, frankly speaking.”Jagdeo had just finished telling the media operatives at a press briefing that several bad investments were made by CLICO Guyana.He told media operatives that at CLICO Guyana all of the money spent can be tracked adding that, “It’s not like it disappeared or was siphoned…the problem is it was the judgment, it might be bad judgment.”The President said,Cheap Jerseys NFL China, “Clearly we can establish that they had inter-company links established across the Caribbean… they had interlocking directorate and they were excessively leveraged.”The President said that monies were sent from Guyana to CLICO Bahamas, to the Turks and Caicos,Cheap Jerseys USA, to Suriname and to several other CLICO ventures “because of interlocking directorate and because of incestuous transactions…those are clear to us.”As it relates to CLICO Guyana’s investments overseas,NFL Jerseys China, the President reiterated that, if one should talk about that, a lot of our people made bad judgments…They were lured by high interest rates….This happen in a financial crisis…Look at how much money is lost around the world.”Jagdeo stressed that if it were a matter of corruption then it would have been a totally different scenario “but we have found no evidence of corruption.”A lot of people made bad judgments in the period and a lot of people lost their money, some with Stanford.Singh-Knight was placed on an interim management board of GuySuCo to assist in drafting a ‘turn-around plan’ for the industry.It was later found that while she was at the helm of CLICO Guyana, the company breached the Insurance Act by investing more than it should have overseas and the company was well below its liquidity rate.A senior official close to GuySuCo source has since advised Singh Knight is on the Board in a voluntary position and receives no salary and is boun

Prominent businessman/hotelier, Robert Badal, says he is willing to write a cheque that will see him gaining controlAHI’s head, Winston Brassingtonof the US$57M Marriott Hotel facilities in Kingston.According to the businessman who holds majority interests in Pegasus Hotel and Guyana Stockfeeds Limited, he has been following keenly the developments with Marriott and now that details of the many incentives and tax breaks granted for the project are coming to light, he is more than willing to invest the US$8M that offers 67 percent ownership of the hotel.“Once there is a guarantee that all these incentives, including the exemptions on the Withholding Tax, Property Tax and Corporation Tax, will come as the conditions under the current arrangements,Cheap NFL Jerseys Supply, I will be more than willing to come on board as the equity investor for US$8M,” the businessman said.During the first three years of the hotel’s operation, AHI, which Winston Brassington heads, says that the equity investor will get US$1.3M. From year four of operation,Cheap Jerseys From China, the equity investor will be paid US$1.2M each year for the next six years.In year 10 of its operation,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, that equity investor will have received a whopping US$37.2M, setting the rate of return over the 10-year period at 22.2 per cent.Should Badal be successful as the equity investor, he is likely to rake in US$46M in returns by the end of 10 years, according to documents provided by Brassington and government.Businessman,Robert BadalThe new hotel is being granted 10-year exemption from Corporation,Wholesale Hockey Jerseys, Property and Withholding Tax (including the payment of interest and dividends to debt providers and equity holders.)Withholding Tax is income tax withheld from employees’ wages and paid directly to the government, by the employer.It is also guaranteeing relief from duty and excise tax on capital repairs or replacements, including machinery, equipment and buildings costing more than US$10,Jerseys NFL Cheap,000.The equity investor is entitled to a one-off retrofitting of the project if so required, for a period of ten years from the commencement of commercial operations.Badal’s Pegasus Hotel is located right next door to Marriott in Kingston. And it has no such concessions.? Quite a few other hotels are also miffed over the extravagant incentives.Under it financial arrangements for the Marriott, Government of Guyana has invested through equity and a loan, around US$20M. It is also sourcing another US$27M through a syndicated loan being managed by Republic Bank Trinidad.The catchy part of the arrangement that has surprised many is that the additional US$8M that AHI’s head, Winston Brassington, says is needed, will virtually give control to the equity investor that is coming on board.This hotel is being constructed under “public/private” financing arrangements.Government last year announced that two Hong Kong businessmen had come on board with the US$8M as the equity investors but a court case over the mortgaging of the property saw the Hong Kong two pulling out.The almost completed Marriott Hotel, in Kingston.The two men are Victor How Chung Chan and Xu Han, whose company, British Virgin Islands (BVI)-registered ACE Square Investments Ltd, was touted to have invested the money.The extravagant incentives and other benefits have left other hotel operators extremely worried as the new 197-room hotel in Kingston, when it comes on stream this year, is more than likely to close them down.Last month,China Jerseys, Brassington admitted that financing for the project was in jeopardy because of the court case filed by Opposition Member of Parliament, Desmond Trotman.That case immediately raised questions of where government was getting the monies from to continue building the hotel.