Business

While the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) raked in almost GYD$200 billion in taxes last year, it wants the court system to hear a more than 20-year backlog of cases, including one against the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GTT) company, GRA Commissioner-General Godfrey Statia said. Government officials have said GTT wants a US$44 million claim settled before agreeing to formal liberalisation ...

China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) will by the end of January, 2019 be fined more than U$200,0000 or US$7,000 per day for missing the 31st December, 2018 firm deadline to complete the US$150 million Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) expansion project, Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson said Monday. Ruling out an extension of the deadline, Patterson said the company would ...

Finance Minister, Winston Jordan on Sunday virtually ruled out the State paying a living minimum wage and urged the predominantly Afro-Guyanese government workforce to grasp opportunities to become entrepreneurs and create wealth. Noting that the minimum wage is now GYD$64,000 up from GYD$39,000 in three years, and the take-home pay is about GYD$55,000, Jordan acknowledged that “it can’t do” and ...

The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) presidential candidate, Irfaan Ali, on Saturday announced that some retrenched sugar workers would be compensated and the two East Berbice sugar estates – Skeldon and Rose Hall-Canje – would be reopened. “The first thing we are saying to you is that we are going to reopen the estates here in Region 6 [East Berbice-Corentyne] and ...

The Town Clerk of Georgetown, Royston King, has been fired Wednesday after refusing to respond to questions from the Local Government Commission, emerging from the recent independent Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the City’s operations, sources said. After the CoI conducted by Retired Chancellor of the Judiciary Charles Kennard uncovered several alleged misconduct, including the lease of land that did ...

Administrative regions where mining is the main economic activity could get a small percentage of the earnings, if Cabinet greenlights the draft National Mineral Sector Policy Framework and Actions, officials said. Consultant and Exploration Geologist Sherwood Lowe told reporters that the recommendation was made by Region 10 Chairman Renis Morian during an outreach to stakeholders. Lowe said his report to ...

Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge and United States Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan on Wednesday discussed Guyana’s “upcoming national elections” and security matters related to the political instability in neighbouring Venezuela, a State Department spokesman said. The Guyana Government has not definitively stated whether elections would be held this year, but both the governing A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance ...

The Guyana Postal and Telecommunications Workers  Union (GPTWU) and phone company pensioners, several with more than 50 years of service, on Wednesday demanded that the Ministry of Finance publicly prove that they are receiving their correct pensions in keeping with their unbroken service. GPTWU President Harold  Shepherd said the union and the pensioners’ association have given government one week to ...

Attorney General Basil Williams on Monday denied that the withdrawal of the conferral of Senior Counsel on Attorney-at-Law, Timothy Jonas had to do with Jonas’ years of experience and not because he had entered the political arena. “I doubt that. We don’t operate like that. That might be coincidence. How do you know that he is entering the fray? It ...

ExxonMobil’s  environmental permit for the Liza Phase 2 development project is yet to be approved by Guyana’s environmental watchdog as it scrutinises the oil giant’s permit application, official sources said. An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agency was not entirely satisfied with a number of conflicting statements in the voluminous document that was ...