KAIETEUR News headline of Sunday, April 15, entitled “Brassington misleads nation about Marriott Hotel Deal–Government is indeed guaranteeing private investors—Opposition Parties” is totally unsubstantiated by the article. It reflects, yet again, a personal and deceitful attack on Winston Brassington and an anti-investment attack by the KN/Opposition members. For the record, PU/NICIL wishes to restate what has been said publicly.  Nothing in the article disputes these facts.

Press Conference of March 14 and response on March 15th to a Parliamentarian question

On March 14, the Government, via the Minister of Finance, made public various agreements related to the Marriott transaction and the answers to a Parliamentary question posed by Mr. Ramjattan of the AFC. Below are extracts from the said question and response:

(i) Question (part iv): “In relation to the financing of the Marriott hotel, could the Minister give the facts on the financing structure and arrangement of this Project, namely, how much equity has been committed and by whom, how much will be borrowed from which bank, and whether any (and how much) State funds have been spent and are committed?

Answer: No State funds from the Consolidated Fund have been allocated to this project or are expected to be allocated from the budget. The financing structure includes:

(i) Equity participation of USD12M [$8M (Private)/$4M (NICIL)];
a. US$8M will come from private investors; while various groups have expressed interest, to invest a portion or part of the US$8M investment, a selection of this investor has not been made (the closing date of a publicly advertised Expressions of Interest (EOI) is March 12th ). Once one or more private investors are selected, the party/parties will need to be approved by both Marriott and Republic Bank, given that the 67% shareholder will be deemed to be the majority partner.
(ii) Senior debt syndicated by Republic Bank (Trinidad & Tobago) Ltd. of D$27M; there is a binding Term Sheet that relates to the debt and the terms and conditions;
(iii) Subordinate Loan Stocks of USD$15M invested by the NICIL.
(iv) Outfitting costs for the Entertainment Complex estimated at US$4M that is expected to be funded by the operators (casino, nightclub, and restaurant) once these operators are selected via an RFP to be issued.

NICIL will review periodically after completion of the project, the timing for the sale of its investments.

NICIL has spent or will spend less than US$2M on development costs for the project including design costs to ADUA and preliminary costs prior to Financial Close; these costs are not part of the capital structure of AHI”.

Question (part v): “Is there any Government Guarantee to any financial institution or Chinese company?

Answer:  There is no Government Guarantee to any financial institution or Chinese Company for this project.  NICIL and the majority shareholder(s) will have to stand behind certain risks—costs overruns and any debt service shortfall until certain debt service ratios are achieve. However, these risks are considered to be minimal given the Feasibility Studies, the deal structure and the form of the “FIDIC Plant and Design Build Contract.”

Answer to part viii of question:
“….the Government is willing to have a “closed door” presentation that will allow certain details of these documents to be made available under the condition of utmost confidentiality and discussed with key opposition members without these documents being made public.”

Kaieteur News report of April 8, 2012
In response to follow on questions from Kaieteur News on the information released to the public, KN in its Sunday, April 8 newspaper contained the following statement which is consistent with the response to Parliament.

“There is no government guarantee on the US$27 million debt that is being facilitated by Republic Bank (Trinidad) for the Marriott Hotel Project, says Winston Brassington, who manages Government investments. “The shareholders will have to stand behind some of the obligations in the event of certain contingencies, but there is no government guarantee – none whatsoever.”

It is clear that KN continues to print headlines in a reckless and dishonest manner. The basic principles of journalism of fairness, balance, and objectivity, are clearly absent. The interviews with opposition members, as would be expected reflect those of an opposition position, but more importantly, generally lack substance and in many cases appear to be speculative.

The Government has already answered a series of questions posed in Parliament on the Marriott transaction. Further, the Government has said, that due to the confidentiality of certain parts of the information, that it is willing to provide this via a “closed door” session.

The continued actions on the part of KN reflect a personal attack on Winston Brassington and further appear to be a continued anti-investment stance, against any transaction or development project being facilitated by this Government. These attacks were present when the stadium was being built, the Berbice Bridge project was being developed and the hydro, to name a few.

Privatisation Unit/NICIL