Rental not agreed for NIS acquired CLICO property
HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon said yesterday, that, contrary to a statement he had made during his last week media briefing; Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) will not be paying a monthly rental of $10.5M for the former Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) building, on Camp Street, Georgetown. He explained, “The actual rental has not being settled but it does seem that the HPS might have poisoned the negotiations by suggesting $10.5M was agreed to. It is an inflated sum and the GRA has indicated it has no interest in negotiating a $10.5M a month rent for a long term lease agreement.”
The Cabinet Secretary confirmed, last week, that the acquisition of the Camp Street property by the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), did, indeed, allow for the value of $600M to be offset from some outstanding indebtedness of CLICO.
Responding to a question on whether the takeover by NIS is an attempt to liquidate the debt owed it; he told the media that the action was to reduce some of the $5 billion still due to the Scheme.
“The funding that is being identified in the award, for which Cabinet granted its no objection, those funds are being invested by the new tenant, the Guyana Revenue Authority, to reconfigure the building and, particularly, its electrics, to provide clean power and a suitable environment for the conduct of its business, as opposed to what it was before, insurance business,” Luncheon had said.
NIS invested a total of $6 billion in CLICO, which was all lost after the latter collapsed and the acquiring of the Camp Street real estate is part of the liquidation process, he stated.
The Lots 200 and 201 Camp Street, occupying an area of 36,863 square feet, was valued at between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion by the valuator contracted by the insurance company, while the Guyana Government valuer put the value at $1.316 billion, a difference of $400M.
Luncheon said liabilities for CLICO were also in entities such as GuyOil and the Dependents’ Pension Fund.
NIS had taken possession of the Camp Street four-storey and holds it as a long term investment.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Guyana has been appointed liquidator and is seeking to increase the liability of the failed insurance company by raising more money from activities, such as the sale of its assets as well as from taking legal action against BOSAI, CLICO (Bahamas) and Caribbean Resources Limited.