…due to ‘incompetence’ of City Hall
An operating restaurant franchise in Guyana has reportedly lost close to G$30 million in just over three years after several proposals were not responded to by City Hall, which they said could have be easily resolved if a bribe was given.
Chief Executive Officer of Camex Restaurants Incorporated, Terence Campbell, testified on Wednes-day at the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into several applications that were submitted to the City Engi-neer’s Department at the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) as it relates to properties in Georgetown.
However, one issue that was questionable was in respect to a property at Croal Street, Stabroek, which previously housed the Sino fast food restaurant. Campbell indicated that the intention was to establish another branch of the popular Church’s Chicken in 2016.
After agreements were signed with Sino fast food to take over the company and documents were fi-nalised with the owner of the property to obtain a long-term lease, the CEO stated that the M&CC heard of the operations and he was visited by Town Clerk Royston King, Mayor Patricia Chase Green, and City Engineer Colvern Venture less than a week after. The businessman was told he had no per-mission to operate, even though that is not the standard procedures set out when obtaining a busi-ness place.
“The Mayor, the Town Clerk and the City Engineer turned up immediately to say that the building which previously operated as Sino fast food for over two years had no permission to operate.
What I find very strange is that for two years, this building operated as a restaurant but from the moment they heard that Church’s was going there, they turned up saying that you have no permission to oper-ate,” said the businessman.
As per what he was told, Campbell proceeded to submit applications to the City Engineer’s Depart-ment, which were neither approved not acknowledged. Consequently, the Central Housing and Plan-ning Authority (CH&PA) was engaged and permission was given.
He noted that works would been done at the fast food joint to upgrade the facilities as well as a monthly rent of over G$1.2 million was paid. One year of rent was paid and the business was never opened since no permission was given by the Council. Management was later forced to terminate the lease and was also sued by Sino fast food.
“We didn’t even operate for a day and I lost G$20 million.”
‘Pure incompetence’ and ‘gross negligence’ were the words of the businessman as he commented on the operations at the Council. He noted that some businessmen in the city are also working in collusion with the M&CC to stifle other businesses which may pose competition.
