As the controversy continues to rage over funds held by the state holding company, NICIL, its head Winston Brassington last night challenged AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan to a television forum on the issues for which they can jointly agree on a moderator.
In a statement, Brassington said that NICIL has paid over $9 billion in dividends to the Consolidated Fund since 2002 and he also restated the points that he has made in recent weeks.He also said that NICIL will shortly be publishing an updated booklet on its privatizations.
In recent weeks Ramjattan has charged that NICIL had $50 billion in its coffers and that the state holding company was concealing this from the public and surreptitiously spending it. The joint opposition has argued that all of the money held by NICIL should be placed in the Consolidated Fund. The statement said that “In recent weeks, Mr Khemraj Ramjattan of the Alliance For Change has made a number of attacks on NICIL and its Executive Director Winston Brassington. The attacks on NICIL’s, CEO remain unsubstantiated. Mr Ramjattan continues to attack without producing any shred of information. The Kaieteur News’ headline of today (May 14) again seeks by innuendo to attack the integrity of the CEO.
“For the record, NICIL has most recently completed interviews in which it has made the following statements:
* The primary applicable law to NICIL is the Companies Act
* During 2002 and 2011, over $9B was paid out by NICIL as dividends to the Consolidated Fund
* The Auditor General is the auditor of NICIL, as set out in the law; NICIL as a company has had its audit completed to the end of 2010; NICIL as a group has had its audit completed to the end of 2005. The annual report for 2004 for NICIL has been laid in Parliament. Additionally, NICIL has sought to lay in Parliament the audited accounts of its subsidiaries as soon as these are available; in the last two years, over 80 sets of annual reports/audited accounts related to NICIL’s subsidiaries have been laid over to Parliament by the Minister of Finance
* In 2008, NICIL published a booklet on the transparency of all of its privatization; see www.privatisation. gov.gy. This booklet, established the transparency of every transaction. This booklet is being updated and will be issued very shortly.
NICIL’s CEO is willing to go on television with Mr Ramjattan to discuss the following:
* Any fact relating to NICIL including all statements in the public arena made by Mr Ramjattan
* Any fact relating to privatization and more importantly, the integrity of any transaction, including any transaction or statement in the media by Mr Ramjattan
* The individual filings with the Integrity Commission.”
The statement said that for many months, the CEO of NICIL has sought to refrain from responding to the unsubstantiated reports of Kaieteur News and Ramjattan.
