By Telesha Ramnarine

SARATU Phillips, Chief Executive Officer of Astrolobe Technology Incorporated, says he has had a valid contract since 2007 with the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to set up a structured parking system in Georgetown, but he is “shocked” to learn that it is now being given to someone else.In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle at Bel-Air Park, Phillips said he learned that the M&CC is entering into a contract with a company called National Parking Systems.
“The issue that first jumped out at me is that I have an exclusive contract already to do parking with the M&CC and they are dealing with a new company as if I no longer exist.”
Phillips came to Guyana in 2006 and had put together a team of information technology professionals who were looking at transferring other technologies from the United States to Guyana. “We initiated a few projects that didn’t work out. The last project we jumped on is how we could set up a structured parking system.”
From December 2006, Phillips said his team worked with the City Council until October 2007, when he obtained an exclusive contract, valid for 25 years, from the municipality to design the parking system.
“It was going to run the City Council close to US$2M to implement a simple parking system and they didn’t have the funds at the time, so the idea was for me to bring the investors, bring the technology. We had a core team working and we were going to put everything together.”
However, Phillips decided that he would not start works until the City Council amended some of its by-laws. “Back and forth we were debating the by-laws and I eventually decided that I would pay to get them done in 2008. After I submitted the by-laws, the issue arose that the government was not giving them the go-ahead to raise funds on their own. We were then stuck at this point.”

However, the understanding between the parties was that Phillips’s contract remained valid and would continue as soon as permission was granted. “Everybody in the City Council knows I have this contract. We did a lot of work on it. There is no violation on my part of the contract nor was there any on their part. The simple thing was for us to meet, get the by-laws passed, and get the government to give them the go-ahead.”
After the general elections in 2015, Phillips began engaging Town Clerk Royston King, who said that as soon as he got into office they would start working on the project. In fact, Phillips said King wrote to him affirming his knowledge that he (Phillips) had the contract.
POLITICAL CONNECTIONS
“In November 2015, someone from the media called me and told me that the contract was being handed to someone else who has political connections. I am shocked. The name of the person they are giving the contract to is Kamau Cush. I told Cush I have this contract and that we would have years of litigation and that nothing is going to happen. Why go after something that I already have? He bluntly told me I am a small fish and that he has lots of political and judicial connections in this country and that he is going to get this. His business partner or his consultant here is Bobby Vieira. I emailed Bobby Vieira every piece of paper work that I have on parking and I told him that I have this contract.”
CORRUPTION AND NEPOTISM
Phillips is hoping that good sense will prevail and that the M&CC will acknowledge that what they are doing is wrong. “I have invested a lot of time and money in relation to parking. I have some lawyers and whatever they advise, I will do. But this borderlines corruption and nepotism.”
Meanwhile, Deputy Mayor Sherod Duncan, in an invited comment, told this newspaper that he is unaware of the contract between Phillips and the Council. He said this may be because it is an old issue that was brought forward to the new council. Other officers of the council could not be reached for comment.