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High Court orders $83M to be repaid to investors in New Nigel Supermarket deal Sep 30, 2024 News The New Nigel Supermarket Kaieteur News – The High Court last Friday ordered that businessmen Otillo Pereira and Troy Phillips to repay their investors, Jamal Shamsudeen and Ian Shamsudeen in excess of $83 million for failing to uphold their end of the bargain in a business deal. The Shamsudeens had taken Perreira and his co defendants to court over the sum on the grounds of a failure of consideration and unjust enrichment.  The Shamsudeens had brought the claim against Perreira and Phillips both personally and in their capacity as directors, shareholders and officers of the company that operated the New Nigel Supermarket. According to the court document, the issues arising for consideration before the Court were: whether the evidence establishes a basis for bringing a claim against the defendants in their capacity as shareholders, directors or officers of the company; whether the parties had an agreement with respect to the money advanced by the Shamshudeens.  If not, whether the money is repayable. The Shamshudeens were represented by attorney, Senior Counsel, Roysdale Forde while, Attorney Nigel Hughes and Jed Vasconcellos represented Pereira and Phillips. Justice Fidela Corbin presided over the matter. According to court documents, around November 2018, Perreira approached Jamal and and Ian Shamsudeen requesting a loan of $70,000,000.00 (seventy million dollars) for him to invest in a supermarket venture. At the meeting, the businessman informed them that he had acquired a power of attorney from Joseph Nigel Johnson in respect of the building and supermarket building known as Nigel’s Supermarket. He informed them that he wanted to acquire the building, refurbish and restock the supermarket. The investors informed Perreira that they would consider his request. About a week later they informed him that they would lend him $70,000,000.00 to invest in the supermarket venture. At that time the parties did not agree to any terms and conditions of the loan. At that time Perreira was informed that the Shamsudeens would invest $70,000,000 which was to be repaid by him (Perreira) personally “within a year, half of the sum being $35,000,000 …6 months from January 2019 that is to say July 2019 and the balance by January 2020. “The 1st defendant’s [Perreira] response to his position on the sum and the dates for repayment was that “we will see”. As a result, Mr. J Shamsudeen informed the businessman that he and Ian Shamshudeen would each loan him the sum of $35,000,000.00. The business proposal formed part of a debt recovery proposal which was submitted by and in the name of  the company Reguim International Inc, which Phillips is listed as a director and  shareholder to  Republic Bank Limited around 22nd November 2018. He participated in the preparation of the business proposal. Perreira and Phillips assert that the money was to be treated as an investment repayable over a 20 year period. They said that the 1st J Shamsudeen was part of the team that prepared the Nigel Supermarket Debt Recovery Proposal which was submitted to Republic Bank and there was a 20 year repayment structure and not one year. The businessmen also disputed inter alia that any agreement was made for Shamsudeens to be listed as a shareholder or director of the company. In her ruling, Justice Corbin noted that the investors advanced the money with the expectation that an agreement would be reached with respect to the terms governing the sums advanced.  The judge noted that “This expectation did not materialise and no agreement was reached….” As such, the court found that the defendants have been unjustly enriched and failed to establish a defence to the restitutionary claim.  As a result, the judge said that the defendants must therefore repay the sums by which they have been unjustly enriched. The defendant Perreira shall pay the sum of $12,350,000.00 to Mr. J Shamshudeen being the total sum advanced by him.  The company shall repay the sum of $36,000,000.00 to Shamsudeen being the total sum advanced by him and the company shall repay the sum of $35,000,000.00 to Mr. I Shamshudeen being the sum advanced him. Meanwhile in determining the basis upon which costs should be quantified, the court took into consideration all the circumstances including the reasonable rate for the attorney-at-law, the nature and value of the claim, the time reasonably spent in dealing with the matter and awarded costs to the defendants in the sum of $1,500,000. Related Similar Articles

Is Open Season fuh Stealing Current! Sep 30, 2024 Dem Boys Seh, Features / Columnists Kaieteur News – De gat some – not all –  food caravans by de roadside wah looking bright like Christmas trees, but not a meter in sight! It look like dem crack de secret code fuh free electricity. Yuh could call it “by de pole, no meter needed.” Ah mean, why pay when yuh could plug in and forget it? Squatters tekkin notes too. Plug in and play, and de lights stay on like magic! It’s a free-for-all, folks! Hook up to de pole. Nobody checking fuh meters no more; who need dem? All yuh need is some wire and bravery. But here’s de joke: while some man laughing all de way to de bank, we de honest citizens picking up de tab! Dem utility companies nah stupid, yuh know. Every kilowatt stolen still haffi be paid fuh, and guess who paying? De man with de meter. Ah wonder if people understand how de math work. Electricity generate fuh everybody—dem wid meter, dem without, and even dem who plug in wid two lil clamps on de corner pole. De power company only care bout how much energy dey generate, not who using it or how. If yuh stealing current, yuh just adding to de line losses, and dem losses does end up on all we bill. Nowaadys when yuh open yuh electricity bill, yuh liable to be shocked. Yuh think yuh paying fuh yuh fridge and fan alone? Think again! Yuh helping to pay fuh de fella down de road who stealing de current. It look like in Guyana, de honest man foot de bill fuh everybody else, including de light thief! It remind dem boys of de man who told his boss that two companies were after him. The boss asked, “Which companies? “ De man answered, “Water and electricity!” Talk half. Leff half Related Similar Articles

Exxon’s profIts and Guyanese poverty Sep 30, 2024 Editorial Kaieteur News – Recently ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL), with a 45% interest in the rich Stabroek Block in its financial statements, reported after-tax profit of $615 billion or approximately US$3 billion. Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. holds 30% interest, and CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Limited holds 25% interest. This means that the three partners together walked away with approximately $1.4 trillion or US$6.5 billion in 2023. In the meantime, the government of Guyana, that is contractually poised to benefit from 50% of the profits generated in the block, was only paid US$1.6 billion in oil revenue during 2023. Notably, this sum also includes the 2% royalty. Then earlier this month we also reported that for 2023, the Government of Guyana (GoG) had to pay the combined sum of $306 billion in income taxes for ExxonMobil Guyana Limited and its Stabroek Block partners, Hess and CNOOC according to the companies’ audited financial statements, while for the same period Guyana earned $336 billion from its oil. This arrangement which saw the Government paying almost the same amount it earned from oil, in taxes for the oil companies last year is as a result of the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) which Coalition Government signed with the U.S oil major. Last year, the three companies earned $1.3 trillion in profits – entirely tax-free in Guyana. However, while Exxon, Hess, and CNOOC are not required to pay taxes, the 2016 oil contract provides for the taxes to be paid to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) by the Government out of its share of profit oil. All of this is happenin on the backs of Guyanese, with the blood drained out of them. Considering Exxon’s fabulous numbers, and this country’s contribution to them, all citizens of this country must be even more determined to rise up and fight for what is rightly theirs.  Given our own impoverished state, and the plight of many citizens, there is every justification for Guyana to get more from its oil wealth, regardless of what it takes, or what must be done. More and more, it is registering in the minds of Guyanese that their leaders will not stand up and fight for them, and when they do say something and signal something, there is the sense that their hearts are not into what they put out.  It looks like if the most that there are trying do is to pacify the people, at least those who are agitated by the messages of the few others in this country who are saying that ExxonMobil is robbing us, and that our own elected leaders have not risen to the challenge before them. Guyana’s President,  Irfaan Ali and the oil chief, Bharrat Jagdeo have skipped around and danced inside hula hoops where renegotiation of the contract is concerned, which is why ExxonMobil can boast about its record profit.  Jagdeo the nation’s Vice President is put in charge of running this country’s oil sector, on which so much depends.  Yet, he has distanced himself (by his weak postures and unpersuasive actions) from pursuing any vigorous course of engagement.  Anything that pushes the leaders of ExxonMobil to appreciate that Guyanese are serious, and that they will not take no for an answer.  Thus, the American oil giant can bask in the glow of its gigantic profit haul from the blood of Guyana.  And Leader of Opposition Aubrey Norton despite his 20-point oil plan unveiled last week has not taken a ferocious and persistent stand that there must be change in our dealings with, and returns from, ExxonMobil.  This is why, repeatedly ExxonMobil can take home the milk and honey, compliments of Guyana’s oil. Even the most fleeting look at ExxonMobil’s numbers, either in dollar or percentage terms, confirms how the company and its people are riding high.  The company’s management, workers, shareholders, and speculators all are doing very well.  On the other hand, the people who own this immense oil wealth, the Guyanese people, are scratching around to make a living, and this is only considering the essentials for day-to-day existence.  Their standard of living is frozen in place, their savings stand unmoving (or are depleted to make ends meet), as they live with this contradiction of being the owners of this wealth, but still growing poorer despite it. Now, Guyanese have some choices.  They can continue to pretend to be uncaring and passive or they can be so incensed at the lopsided nature of the Guyana-Exxon relationship that they can work up the energy and passion to come out, be involved, and ramp up the pressure on local leaders so that something gives or Guyanese can electorally punish political leaders for abandoning them, and joining hands with dangerous outsiders, to destroy their hopes, kill their dreams. ExxonMobil must make money, but not as much; and Guyana should get more, and not so little. Related Similar Articles

A personal embarrassment should be a national one Sep 30, 2024 News, The GHK Lall Column Hard truths… Kaieteur News – Many Guyanese will have difficulty, take umbrage, at some of the Hard Truths shared today.  The dive has already started, can’t be turned back in midair.  It is to wherever the road leads, whatever the reaction(s). By the evolutionary mystery of geology, Guyana finds itself endowed with one of the most prized commodities on earth.  It could be rare earths, but the great undersea pools of a product enjoying that rarest of standings: global demand, continuing worldwide dependency notwithstanding some intrusions from other forces of nature.  By the proximity of latitudes and longitudes, there are these lakes of the viscous black stuff in Guyana that many countries, most of them, in the world would relinquish lots of territory and more citizens to claim some fractional ownership.  It is there and, though some games are underway with the latest number, there is something on which there is universal national agreement.  No clamorous cacophonies.  No controversies from warring comrades. The trouble begins, at least at this address, with how those who raise their hands to be stewards of this richest of national endowments.  The would-be stewards kowtow first, then all but collapse on themselves, in their efforts to represent some local substance and viability before those who have planted their corporate flag in this country.  Those who sail their oil boats over the lush patrimony of the Guyanese people.  The more that local political masters wiggle and worm their way for the favor of the likes of Mr. Darren Woods and Mr. Alistair Routledge, the more that there is significant stomach churning and skin crawling here.  Where are the Guyanese men (and their fawning supporters) who love to chatter about ‘are we not men to stand on our feet and not wastrels to live on our knees?’  If anybody could drop a line about what happened to those stalwarts, any clue about their current whereabouts, a huge debt would be due.  The first personal embarrassment registers sharply.  The feeling is not liked.  If this is occurring at the personal level, then one can only imagine the national humiliation. The last comfort any Guyanese-fence sitter, partisan, cognoscenti, cheerleader, or simple hopeful-could ever wish for is for their political princes to be diminished and dumbed down into playthings for the cocktail hour pleasure of the Texas management elite now so firmly established here.  There is a cruel irony to this canvas about local men and women degraded into the infantilism and impotence of playthings by foreign corporate freebooters, American ones.  Guyana’s top political players have shuddered at the thought of transforming themselves into the model of servant leaders for their own who trusted them. But here they are today, with the advent of this oil, all too ready, and very zealous, to be the court jesters of the powers that be from Spring, Texas.  Or Washington, DC.  What could be more embarrassingly knavish than such an expression of low self-esteem, willingly falling to such a low altitude?  But there they are, groveling in the pits, more like crabs in a barrel, seeking to nudge whoever is ahead aside, or clambering over the competition by any means.  If embarrassment has ever visited more heavily and lingered more immovably, the memory eludes.  Guyanese own political superstars refuse to be servants to their own people, but they gladly play the fool for the men who speak with forked tongues.  Thinking of the willing fool, echoes of Scotland’s Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie better known as Lulu, and as remade by American music legend Aretha Franklin with some more oomph, reach through the haze of years: “Oh me oh my (I’m a fool for you baby.)”  Those two female great made themselves into fools for the caress of love. Over here in Guyana, big men are reduced to tots because of oil, and what they are told (or tell themselves) that they must do to stay in contention.  Somebody has got to hold the domestic house in one piece, a stable one.  If ever there was a bigger letdown, a greater embarrassment, it is still to be felt.  Surely, there must be many other Guyanese who cringe in disgust at how the cream of local manhood has been castrated.  Those who have been spared the role of political eunuch up to this point feel good about themselves in escaping with the lesser disgrace of consenting to being kicked about like a political football. Study the local bigshots carefully and take notes.  Those Guyanese who use to rail against the injustices and inhumanities of slavery and indentureship have seen God.  He is American and his name is Alistair Routledge.  All the visceral raging about the CIA and imperialism and capitalism (among the dirtiest of local curse words) have now taken on a new gloss.  Yesterday’s poisons are today’s Viagra.  Look at them and listen to them.  Those who cannot speak a straight sentence anymore, have difficulty walking a straight line, when oil is the subject.  What is their priority, their primary objective, their first sweeping commitment are all shrouded in a granite sarcophagus of stony silence.  Is this a dumb-maan country?  There is no pride, zero self-respect, only the pitiful.  Oil does that to the natives, wherever it goes.  Embarrassment does not suffice anymore.  Evisceration is close, but too fancy.  Eureka!  Dead men walking fits. Related Similar Articles

Kumu, Moco-Moco power plants nearing completion Sep 30, 2024 News Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips during an inspection of one hydropower plants Kaieteur News – Work is advancing on the Kumu and Moco-Moco power plants in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo), with both projects set to become operational by the end of 2024, providing clean, reliable energy to the region. Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips during a recent visit to the region, inspected the progress of the two major hydropower projects that are set to transform the region’s energy landscape. According to a release issued on Saturday, the PM was provided with detailed briefings from the construction and engineering teams on the ground. The Kumu Hydropower Plant, with a capacity of 1.5 megawatts (MW), is approximately 78 per cent complete, while the Moco-Moco Hydropower Plant, which is being upgraded to a capacity of 0.7 MW, is 95 per cent complete. The plants are being constructed under an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract valued at around US$12.85 million. The contract was awarded to Sri Lankan firm Vidullanka PLC. “The Kumu Hydropower Plant will supply power to the Kumu community and the Lethem power system, contributing to regional development and improving energy access. It is expected to produce about 9,700 MWh annually and reduce power costs to the community,” the release stated. Meanwhile, the Moco-Moco Hydropower Plant will generate approximately 4,565 MWh annually. The plant, built in 1999, was temporarily shut down after a landslide damaged its infrastructure.  Rehabilitation works are now nearly complete, with the final grid connection anticipated by October 2024. PM Phillips reaffirmed the government’s commitment to renewable energy investments to ensure long-term sustainability and energy security. He said that the Kumu and Moco-Moco projects will play a vital role in meeting the country’s renewable energy targets. These projects advance the promise outlined in the PPP/C’s 2020 manifesto to implement an energy-mix that includes hydropower, solar and wind. Similar projects include the 0.65 MW solar farm in Mahdia, which is expected to be completed this year, and three other solar farms, namely a 10 MW solar farm in Berbice, 8 MW solar farm in Essequibo, and a 0.6 MW solar farm at Leguan. PM Phillips was accompanied by Regional Chair, Bryan Allicock; Chief Executive Officer, of the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA), Dr. Mahender Sharma; Chair of the GEA Board of Directors, Jerome Khan; and Chair of the Lethem Power Company Board, Rodger King during his visit. Related Similar Articles

Man fined for slapping woman, possession of narcotics Sep 30, 2024 News Kaieteur News – A 31-year-old miner was fined the sum of $40,000 on Friday for possession of narcotics and assault. Daniel Rodrigues A report from a woman had led police to discover 23.4 grams of marijuana on the man at Port Kaituma Waterfront, North West District (NWD).  The accused, Daniel Rodrigues, made his first court appearance virtually from the Port Kaituma Police Station, before Magistrate Rabindranauth Singh, at the Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate’s Court, where the charges were read to him. Rodrigues pleaded guilty to the assault and possession of narcotics charge. The 23.4 grams of Cannabis found on Daniel Rodrigues Considering his plea, the magistrate imposed a fine of $20,000 on each charge for Rodrigues. Failure to pay will result in imprisonment. Police reported that on Wednesday at 20:20h, the 22-year-old woman and Rodrigues were at Port Kaituma Waterfront, consuming alcohol, when the woman reportedly left to go visit her sister. Police said in the report that this move by the woman angered Rodrigues. He later dealt her several slaps to the face.  As a result, she lodged a report at the Port Kaituma Police Station. Shortly after police arrested Rodrigues and found on him 27 zip-lock bags containing cannabis, which when weighed amounted to 23.4 grams.   Related Similar Articles

‘Dull future ahead for Phase Two of Gas-to-Energy Project’- AFC Sep 30, 2024 News Kaieteur News – As Phase One of the Gas-to-Energy (GTE) Projects lags behind, with no fixed date of completion, the Alliance For Change (AFC) sees a dull future for Phase Two of the initiative, to be financed by private investors. Former Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson Former Minister of Public Infrastructure and Chairman of the Party, David Patterson during a media conference on Friday told reporters that Phase One of the GTE project is unlikely to be completed by the 2025 deadline. He said reports indicate that pile driving activities have only just commenced with equipment for the 300-megawatt (MW) power plant and Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) facility yet to arrive. Patterson put Guyanese on notice that they should expect a lengthy delay to the completion and start-up of the gas plants.  The ambitious project, expected to cost at least US$2B has been delayed due to the late handing over of the site to the contractor, Lindsayca-CH4 by ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL). The operator of the Stabroek Block was tasked with preparing the site for the project but sub-contractors hired by the company however completed the preliminary works later than expected. Government and the joint venture (Lindsayca and CH4) have sought to resolve the dispute over the delayed works through arbitration. That process is ongoing.  Phase One only utilizes 50 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD), which amounts to 40% capacity of Exxon’s 250 kilometer 12-inch pipeline. Phase Two will make use of the remaining 60% capacity of the pipeline. The selected bidder will be tasked with the design, construction, and operation of a 250 MW combined-cycle power plant, to deliver 2,100 gigawatt hours (GWH) of electricity per annum. This will be sold to the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) via a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Government also wants the private investor to construct and operate a NGL facility to produce approximately 6,000 barrels per day of NGL products (propane, butane, and C5+gasolene). The AFC’s David Patterson said, “If Phase One is already developing into a white elephant, you could imagine what Phase Two would be. Maybe a kangaroo or giraffe. I want to say quite clearly, this is another money for the boys project.” He argued that the administration has failed to put systems in place to provide stable electricity for the country, pointing to the purchase of used generators and a leased power ship to provide relief to the frequent power outages being experienced across the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS). Patterson was keen to note that even with those measures, the government is still seeking more electricity to supply the national grid. As such, the former Minister said, “This idea of going for another Phase Two is typical PPP. Money for the boys, lack of transparency, they obviously want to give the impression that they are on it but it’s all a smoke screen.” Related Similar Articles