Please clarify details of the DDL/GRA settlement

Dear Editor

FOLLOWING the Harmon saga, we are now on the DDL/GRA episode. The amount claimed from DDL by GRA has been reduced by about 80 per cent, and the Private Sector Commission is asking that other aggrieved companies be similarly dealt with by GRA in applying the formula to correct the distortions in the marketplace.

Members of the public are aware of the allegations by the PPP that the GRA was wrong to settle for that amount. The formula used by GRA seems interesting, and I am asking that our forensic auditors –- and our financial experts: Christopher Ram, Anand Goolsarran and ‘Rambo’ Gaskin — advise and educate us on what GRA meant when, in conceding to DDL, it claimed that Government gained a profit of $231 million, since, once a debt owed exceeds one year, its value must be discounted for every year it remains uncollected; so during the 15-year period, and based on the interest rate of 10 percent, the $5.3 billion claimed by GRA would have been worth $1.3B, inclusive of what may be due up to, and including, April 2016. I hope I got this right.

Does it mean that if ratepayers do not pay over what is due at the end of the year, there will be a discount? And secondly, will the shareholders of DDL be entitled to a special dividend based on the four billion dollars saved by DDL as a result of the order of GRA?

Regards,
JASON DYAL

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