The Irfaan Ali cabinet last week rejected multi-million dollars payment submissions for works undertaken under the last government on the Infectious Disease Hospital and rental for the facility, sources say.
Sources told Stabroek News that among the rejections were payments for the former owner of the facility Jacob Rambarran and the contractors who worked on the transformation of the hotel into a hospital.
This newspaper yesterday tried contacting Rambarran but calls to his phone went unanswered.
Days after the new PPP/C government assumed office, Rambarran, through the Satram & Satram law firm, informed that the government owed rent as he had never been paid for use of the property. In the letter, dated August 6, Rambarran said if he did not receive payment of all arrears of rent within the next 14 days, he would terminate the tenancy and take steps to repossess the property.
Rambarran detailed that the agreement was made with the Ministry of Public Health, for the facility to be let for a period of one year, at a monthly rental of $13 million. In August he had demanded some $65 million owed in rent to that date and said he would have taken to repossess the property as he had not been paid.
According to the lawyer’s letter sent by Rambarran’s attorneys, the hotel, excluding its contents, was assessed in October 2018 and valued at $2,751,200,000, which is equivalent to US$13,100,950.
The lawyers said that at the time of the purported notice of acquisition of the property by the former government, their client had received offers exceeding US$15 million.
But more than 14 weeks have passed and this newspaper understands that no attempts were made at repossession. Instead, the hotelier again sent rental invoices to the government.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had res-ponded to Rambarran’s August demands for rent, saying that Rambarran “will have a long wait” for any payment for the property, as the PPP/C government found the deal, which it had criticized while in
opposition, as potentially “incestuous” and without transparency.
Jagdeo has justified his position by saying that the new PPP/C administration planned to launch an investigation to determine how the previous government arrived at the deal and the manner in which public funds were utilised for the hospital.
“I must say he will have a long wait! A long wait! Because we believe a lot of irregularities and illegalities took place through this deal. That will be fully investigated…,” he had said in August.
The Vice President questioned the deal Rambarran entered into while noting that there is no lease agreement between him and the government.
“The individual, who claims he owns the land, he stayed quiet throughout the several months that the media was questioning what is going on with the hospital. Suddenly, with the new government, he sends a lawyer’s letter, saying he wants to be paid millions….,” he noted.
“We have to investigate this thoroughly. We heard that the property might be in receivership. He didn’t own the property. We are very surprised how you will demand payment and you didn’t have a formal lease agreement and now claim to this government this will be the price,” Jagdeo emphasised.
He had further questioned why anyone would allow construction on a property for five months and not ask for payment, before reiterating that there are a lot of things that do not hold up under scrutiny and, therefore, require an investigation.
“If somebody is coming on your property and start building and you left them there for five months, now you know you don’t have a contract? There are lots of things that don’t meet the eye that are involved in this relationship and we have to get to the bottom of this and this can very well be an incestuous arrangement and they will have to answer some questions and I think that will take some time,” Jagdeo said.
“…As you are aware by now [it] is not equipped to deal with this pandemic and therefore will have to either undergo major renovation of equipping and retrofitting and even that may not work,” Jagdeo said before pointing out that the building does not have the required ventilation system and other necessary features to become fully functional.
With “additional hundreds of millions” spent to get the hospital to its now functional capacity, government says that payments will have to “undergo rigid scrutiny” before payments done under the past government are approved.
