Queen’s Atlantic Investment Inc, the majority shareholder of the New GPC Inc, recently bought an 18.871 acre plot of land in Plantation Ruimveldt from the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Ltd (NICIL).
According to the Official Gazette of December 4, the agreement was made on October 28, 2010. The purchase of 18.871 acres of land in Plantation Ruimveldt, as set out in the Certificate of Title 07/279, was made on January 18, 2008 with building and erections thereon, the Gazette says.
Sources within NICIL told Stabroek News that the plot would have been sold after the company had leased the land for some time, and that everything appeared legal about the transaction. In excess of $600 million was paid for the plot of land, this newspaper was told.
In 2007, QAII proposed to the government the granting of a 99-year lease of the Sanata Textiles property for a multi-purpose investment complex. Among the projects proposed were the resuscitation of the textile mill providing that the investment cost to restart operations did not exceed US$2 million and the setting up of a state-of-the-art printery with a US$4 million investment. Guyana’s latest daily, the Guyana Times, is printed and published at the state-of-the-art printery.
Also proposed was the establishment of an antibiotics plant and R&D facility representing a US$9 million investment, and the setting up of a bonded duty-free pharmaceutical warehouse constituting a US$4 million investment. The setting up of a hardware warehouse involving an investment of US$7.5 million was also proposed.
The proposal represented an investment of US$27 million over a 5-year period commencing from 2007.
Back in 2008, there was a controversy when QAII was illegally granted concessions and tax holidays by the government.
The concessions were made as a result of the company’s investment in “pioneering” ventures in the antibiotics and textile industry, although at the time the law did not permit this. The Income Tax (In Aid of Industry) Act described pioneering industries as non-traditional agro-processing, information and communications technology, petroleum exploration, mineral exploration and tourist hotels, but not textiles and antibiotics. Amendments were subsequently made to this law to bring the QAII concessions within the pale of legality.
