GUYANA’s first five-star hotel is set to be ready by August next year

and will certainly help to boost employment, creating about 250 jobs. It will also create business opportunities here and, very importantly, it will be a stimulant to attract more tourists and further develop and expand our emerging and fast-growing tourism sector.
The hotel is part of the Marriott International which is a leading global hospitality company with over 3,500 hotels internationally. It controls 337 properties in the United Sates, five in the Caribbean and 16 in Central and South America.
It must be observed that the  high-voltage criticism from  the traditional quarters of  naysayers, prophets of doom, hitherto  the high-crescendo furore that descended upon the public  announcement of the terms and conditions for the construction of the Marriott hotel in Guyana has, more-or-less, begun to dissipate.
Surely, by now, Guyanese are beginning to understand holistically the entire swathe of  issues as they relate to this very special project. Many are beginning to comprehend its meaning for national development.
What is very clear is that the political opposition and its allied critics, including a section of the media,  of the PPP/C government’s negotiation of what is going to be a ground-breaking enhancement of the local hospitality industry, has been defeated.
This is another blow to a pilotless group, whose agenda at a very important juncture of the nation’s political, social and economic development, has been to oppose for the sake of opposing.
One would have thought, that given  all the talk of a new dispensation, that there would have been a departure from this kind of decrepit, traditional political culture that has ever since been proven to be unbeneficial, sterile, and a very bad example to the younger segment of the Guyanese people.
But while most Guyanese see having a Marriott Hotel here as a positive development and good for our economy, there are still some among us who seem bent on stalling progress. This is evident from the fact that, from the inception of the Marriott project, these few perennial cynics and critics  have embarked on a vicious and seemingly unrelenting campaign of misinformation; a campaign that has been largely unsuccessful in its aim of  blocking the project.
Those who were opposed to the project in their hue and cry and attempts to spread hysteria, engaged in a relentless campaign of lies, inaccuracies and mischief to paint a tarnished image and create the impression that the entire process of the investment is a corrupt one.
But even though the project has become a reality and all the information has been made public there is, unfortunately, still a last-ditch and desperate effort by some to create the impression that corrupt practices are involved, despite the lack of any tangible or incriminating evidence.
One idiotic columnist has made a most hilarious argument which defies all the laws of logic, arguing that ‘why should we have a Marriott when our university is in a bad shape’. It really boggles the mind to see the nexus between our university and the Marriott. If we are to employ such logic then we should not embark on any new project or investment in Guyana and only fix the university. This is logic of the most infantile order.
Then there is this nagging accusation of a secret investor being consistently peddled, even though this matter has been cleared up several times.
Only recently, at yet another news conference on Thursday,  Mr. Winston Brassington again strongly refuted claims about a secret investor by   referring to several previously placed advertisements which stated: “AHI is seeking to finalise its selection of one or more participants who will collectively own 67% of AHI’s equity with a total subscription value of US$8M.”
The Government of Guyana will be a minority partner, owning 33% of AHI’s equity. Together the equity of AHI will total US$12 million, he stated.
It was stressed that no money from the Consolidated Fund will be used to execute the project. Every aspect of this project is in the public domain, he said.
The private investor will be identified once the legal documents have been sorted with Republic Bank, Brassington said: “We have every confidence that they will conclude financing and within a short period, we hope to close on the entire transaction”.
Other governments in the Caribbean have similar public/private sector partnerships in place, such as in the case of the Hyatt in Trinidad and Tobago. In Barbados, for the Four Seasons, which is under development, the government guaranteed a US$60M loan and caused their NIS to invest US$30M; the same can be said about the Ritz Carlton in Puerto Rico, among others. But you do not hear anyone in those countries screaming about wastage of taxpayers’ dollars and other such rubbish being peddled here.
Some of us are so myopic or deliberately do not want to see that the Marriott Hotel, apart from creating direct employment, will also create indirect employment as local businesses would have opportunities to provide goods and services to the hotel. We would also have the opportunity to host high-level international conferences and other similar engagements and, of course, we will be able to attract those tourists who seek the quality of service offered by a five-star hotel.
In the final analysis, our foreign exchange earnings will increase and our economy will receive immense benefits. So the question those who are opposed to the project should answer: Are all these benefits detrimental to Guyana and therefore we should forego them?