With substantial work still to be completed on the multi-million dollar Casique hotel, it looks unlikely that it would be ready to accommodate the teams, officials, media and sponsors (TOMS) for the upcoming Cricket World Cup matches to be played in Guyana.
The proprietors had anticipated that the hotel would have been completed by December 31 last year with a grand opening in late January or early February 2007 but those dates have passed and construction is still underway.
Stabroek News, which had first reported on the hotel when construction begun during the third week in February last year, made several attempts to contact one of the three partners in the project but to no avail. Messages left with persons answering the telephone and on an answering machine were unanswered.
The facility, registered as The Casique Palace, Suites and Banqueting Halls Inc, has also received the sum of $33 million as bridge financing for the project from the Guyana government. The money was an advance for the purchase of rooms for the TOMS for the six CWC 2007 Super Eight matches slated to be held in Guyana from March 28 to April 9.
The government had also advanced the sum of $168 million to the hotel next door, Buddy’s International Hotel and Resort to secure the rooms for the TOMS and as explained by President Bharrat Jagdeo to aid in bridge financing issues the hotels under construction were experiencing.
Asked whether the hotel would be completed in time to accommodate guests, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony, who is also the Chairman of the ICC CWC Local Organising Committee, told the Stabroek News on Friday evening that so far the proprietors have indicated that the hotel would be ready for the world’s third largest cricketing event. He said that to date they have not indicated otherwise.
Asked what would happen if it was not completed on time, given the advance for rooms, Anthony said if that were the case the government would have to take some kind of action to recover the money advanced, but he added that it was not so much an issue at present.
In December, when questioned by Stabroek News about government’s financing for the privately-owned facilities, Jagdeo had said whether Stabroek News rages or whoever else “we will complete this because this country’s image is at stake
