The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) will soon occupy the multi-storeyed CLICO building on Camp Street as the asset that was sold to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) is put to economic use as part of the effort at recovering its investment in the failed financial company.
The complex is now going to be GRA’s headquarters, ousing many of the services that the GRA carries out at various locations.
Because of the nature of the GRA’s work, some services will not be moved to the building, such as those carried out at ports of entry, wharves and warehouses.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Commis-sioner General of GRA, Khurshid Sattaur said that the GRA had requested the use of the building and the Board of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) approved that request.
Sattaur said that the GRA is negotiating with the NIS a long term lease for the building.
According to Sattaur, the cost of leasing the CLICO building should not exceed what it would have cost to rent all the buildings that the GRA presently occupies.
He said the GRA has hired a consultancy firm at a cost of $4.5 million under a competitive bidding process to prepare the building for occupancy.
Sattaur said the departments to be housed in the Camp Street building are the Customs and Trade Administration, now on Main Street; Licence Revenue Division, on Princes and Smyth streets; the Value Added Tax (VAT) and Income Tax Divisions, on Charlotte Street; and the Human Resources and Finance Division and the GRA Secretariat, both located on Lamaha Street.
He said the GRA was to have occupied the Ministry of Human Services building at the corner of High and Princes streets. But this plan was put on hold because of the delays in finishing the building.
The Commissioner General said that he will inform the public when the GRA is ready to offer services from the new location.
He said that given the concerns for parking at offices such as the Licence Revenue Division, the GRA is making adequate arrangements at the new location.
Sattaur said that through the lease agreement the NIS will be garnering much needed funds.
The NIS is said to have acquired the building at a cost of $600 million from CLICO as a means of getting back some of its invested funds in the failed financial giant.
The building was said to be the biggest single asset that CLICO, which was placed under Judicial Management in 2010, held.
A local accountancy firm produced a report which indicated that the building had a going concern value of $1.5 billion, a liquidation value on a best case scenario of $1.112 billion and under a worst case, $750 million.
According to reports, the NIS had more than $5.8 billion invested in CLICO as at December 31, 2009.
While under the court-ordered liquidation of CLICO (Guyana) proceeds from the sale of its assets like the CLICO building have to be placed into a pool for distribution to the various classes of policyholders and investors, sources say it is likely that the transaction will be treated as an offset of the amount that the NIS invested in the insurance company.
