Six companies have submitted Expressions of Interest (EoIs) for office space at the newly expanded Cheddi Jagan Inter-national Airport (CJIA) but one current operator, Terrence Campbell, said he did not submit a bid because he does not want to be left tied to a lease without a ground handling operating licence.
Last Wednesday marked the closing date for the submission of EoIs and Swiss-port International, Caribbean Airlines (CAL), Timehri Handling Services, Roraima Airways Inc, the Guyana Post Office Corporation and Secure Wrap Inc, expressed their interest in office space at the airport.
Those selected will enter into a contract for three years with the corporation.
“This Expression of Interest (EoI) is issued by the Cheddi Jagan International Airport Corporation, intended to solicit proposals for the Rental of Offices in the Airport’s Terminal Building. The Cor-poration’s decision with regard to selecting respondents through this EoI shall be final and the Corporation reserves the right to reject,” the CJIAC said when it invited EoIs on April 2nd, 2019.
Recently, local operators at the airport complained over the tendering process for duty-free concessions by the corporation and Campbell had also voiced his concerns.
“I have also suffered at the hands of the CJIA. I am repaying a G$180 million loan because the CJIA is attempting to withdraw from written authorisation for me to operate as a ground handler. Banks DIH and DDL may also be victims of CJIA decisions. It is no surprise to me that Cabinet had no idea about this “quarter-baked” idea to implement these fees. I was told that the subject Minister wasn’t even pre-alerted to the [Caribbean Airlines] threat. CJIA has gone rogue and the subject Minister, for whom I have much respect, must now fix the situation before more harm is done,” he had said.
Campbell had recounted that in 2013, he wrote the airport authority indicating that he wanted to extend his services from cargo handling to full ground handling. He said his building was south of the Arrivals section and there was no place to park the equipment that would have to be imported.
The businessman related that there was an informal discussion with CJIA executives about compensation for the demolition of his and other buildings to facilitate the airport expansion project’s works.
“Sometime in 2015, I got a call from [Chairman of the CJIA Board] Stephen Fraser about demolishing…He said, ‘Do you intend to cooperate or not?’ I said the conversation was over. I wrote several members of the Cabinet and an arrangement was made to place us in the old GAC hangar. It was split between New Timehri Handling Service, Consolidated Cargo and CAL engineers,” Campbell said.
He recalled that the airport did renovations to the old hangar to accommodate the companies and in 2016, they moved. He added that he then moved to apply for financing for ground handling equipment and he started processing the $180 million loan to begin such services. There were discussions with a senior executive on where the material would be parked and he felt all was well.
“The loan was approved in December 2017. I proceeded to purchase half the equipment and it was imported in 2018. When it came in, it was only to see the airport advertising for a ground handler,” Campbell had said. He added that he is now left with repaying a loan without any correspondence from the CJIA management on when or if he can begin services.
The businessman last week explained that he did not submit a bid on Wednesday because he does not want to be granted office space in the terminal but have no ground handling service. He said that he will continue to operate as a cargo handler whilst a decision on the ground handling is made.
“I feel the decision regarding our ground handling licence was deliberately delayed. This means a bid is risky as it might leave us with an office if we win but no licence,” he told this newspaper.
“I consider the actions of CJIA arbitrary and capricious. The airport authority has taken over from the City Council in meting out injustice to the Camex Group but we will survive,” he added.
