Finance Ministry clarifies estates reopening cost

The Ministry of Finance yesterday clarified that the proposed sum to be borrowed for use by the Special Purpose Unit (SPU) as reported in yesterday’s Stabroek News is not solely for the reopening of the Skeldon and Enmore Sugar Estates.

It also includes the financing of critical current and capital programmes, if GuySuCo is to achieve the revised target for this year and the projection for 2019, a statement from the ministry said.

Finance Minister Winston Jordan had said on Wednesday that for the limited reopening of the Skeldon and Enmore sugar estates next month, government was in the process of borrowing some $10B to 15B from local commercial banks here.

“NICIL (National Industrial & Commercial Investments Limited) is looking to get some financing out of a commercial bank, short term, well a kind of syndicated bond just similarly like the AHI (Atlantic Hotels Inc.) and the building of the Marriott. So similar to that,” Jordan told reporters on the sidelines of an IDB forum held at the Pegasus Hotel.

“Short term financing, maybe three to five years, and in that period the revenues that will come from sale of estates… I think it can be anywhere between ten to fifteen billion dollars,” he added, while saying that a sale could be possible over the next six to nine months.