– Minister Singh
–  -in public domain for years
MINISTER of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh yesterday called on the Opposition and certain segments of the media to acquaint themselves with the facts regarding the large projects that government has undertaken, so as to arrive at an informed conclusion rather than just opposing merely for the sake of opposing. The minister, who joined Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing, said that given the obvious benefits of these large projects to Guyana and its people, one cannot help but conclude that the insinuations made by the Opposition are designed to undermine these major projects simply because of their positive impacts. This, he said, is clearly a political motive.

MARRIOT
This project is an investment of over US$50M that will bring a major international brand to Guyana, create hundreds of jobs in the construction phase and beyond when it becomes operational, and significantly raise the standards of the hospitality industry.
The minister said that this project is being implemented through a public/private partnership, whereby government is merely acting as a catalyst.
“This project meets the standards of transparency; we advertised publicly inviting expression of interests…our most recent advertisement was placed just about a month ago…I don’t think there are many who could dispute an investment of this scale in a country such as ours and across the Region, many of our sister Caribbean countries would welcome a development such as this,” the minister said.
Minister Singh rejected claims that information about the Marriot project was made public from sources outside of Guyana and clarified that this project was in the public domain for several years.
However, there was a pre-emptive disclosure by one particular investor who was operating in Grenada, who at the time, had expressed an interest in developing the project and who had discussed certain confidential obligations with government, which he subsequently breached after he made a comment in a Grenadian newspaper.
But at the time when this premature disclosure was made, the project had already been long announced by the administration. According to the Government Information Agency (GINA), this investor is no longer involved in the project.
This hotel and casino project has been under consideration since 2004. In early 2009, the sole private developer , ADUA, withdrew from the project citing the global financial crisis and the loss of financing. Government then resolved to pursue this project, following a public-private partnership route.
Advertisements were subsequently placed in the media in May 2009, inviting proposals, which were submitted by three firms. In December 2009, a Letter of Intent was executed between AHI and Marriott, for the latter to be the hotel operator/manager.

In June 2010, Marriott issued a press release announcing the opening of a 160-room Marriott hotel in Georgetown, Guyana by 2013. In the process of selecting a contractor, Shanghai Construction Group (SCG) was the lowest evaluated tenderer; however, the price exceeded the budget.
As a result, both tenderers indicated that with an alternate design, savings could be achieved without compromising the functional requirements sought. As such, they were allowed to submit revised costings based on alternate designs and again, SCG submitted the lowest price.
SCG alternate design was prepared by Tongji Architectural Design (Group) Co., Ltd (TJAD), a top design firm started in 1958, with major experience designing top quality hotels including the Marriott brand.
This project has an estimated capital cost of US$58M. Funding will be in the form of debt and equity with government’s contribution being one-third of the funding.
Under the terms of the design-build contract executed with SCG, construction will start by March 2012. Completion and start of commercial operations of the hotel and entertainment complex are expected two years thereafter, that is, February 2014.