The management of State entity, Public Holding Incorporated (PHI), made professional business decisions but the management of the finances of the firm was unsatisfactory, an audit has found.
PHI was incorporated on October 5, 1999 for the specific purpose of managing or disposing of property owned by Guyana Stores Limited (GSL). The principal owner of PHI at the time of its creation was GSL, which itself was the property of the Government of Guyana and was under the control of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL). GSL then transferred 24 of what was described as “non-core properties” to PHI, the value of which was used to capitalize PHI.
An audit report on the operations of PHI was released recently by the Ministry of Finance and it was critical of some aspects of the operations. The audit, done by auditor Charles Sugrim, covered the period October 1999 to June 2015.