Dime con quien andas
The saga involving Sherritt International and their long-standing relationships with those lovable Castro brothers continues to get more bizarre by the day.
You may recall that the large Canadian conglomerate and one of its partners, Pebercan, announced over the weekend that the Castro regime was "revoking" a 16-year-old petrol production agreement with the companies. No explanation was given for the unexpected decision to break a contract that had another 10 years or so to run.
However, the Cubans did promise to pay the Canadian companies USD140 million in compensation for breaking the contract.
So, it’s all OK, right? Well, no. It’s now come to light that the severing of ties followed months of efforts by Pebercan to have the Cubans “catch up on missed payments”, which are apparently worth more than US118 million.
But there is more.
The chief executive of Sherritt, Ian Delaney, has confirmed to Canadian media that Sherritt has also faced “missed payments” from the Cubans. In fact, they are owed nearly US400 million, which is a lot of money in anyone’s language – and especially so if you are a Sherritt shareholder.
Not that Mr Delaney is worried, mind you.
"Like every developing country in the world, particularly one with the enormous social objectives of Cuba, they never have enough money, so we're always depending on the cycle,” he told the media. “We're always running big receivables with these people.”
He said he’d been working with the Castro regime for 18 years and would use those “ high-level relationships” to find a “solution” to the scrapped production-sharing agreement, adding: "This is a country that has always been very good to us.”
Wish him luck. Or perhaps not.
You may recall that the large Canadian conglomerate and one of its partners, Pebercan, announced over the weekend that the Castro regime was "revoking" a 16-year-old petrol production agreement with the companies. No explanation was given for the unexpected decision to break a contract that had another 10 years or so to run.
However, the Cubans did promise to pay the Canadian companies USD140 million in compensation for breaking the contract.
So, it’s all OK, right? Well, no. It’s now come to light that the severing of ties followed months of efforts by Pebercan to have the Cubans “catch up on missed payments”, which are apparently worth more than US118 million.
But there is more.
The chief executive of Sherritt, Ian Delaney, has confirmed to Canadian media that Sherritt has also faced “missed payments” from the Cubans. In fact, they are owed nearly US400 million, which is a lot of money in anyone’s language – and especially so if you are a Sherritt shareholder.
Not that Mr Delaney is worried, mind you.
"Like every developing country in the world, particularly one with the enormous social objectives of Cuba, they never have enough money, so we're always depending on the cycle,” he told the media. “We're always running big receivables with these people.”
He said he’d been working with the Castro regime for 18 years and would use those “ high-level relationships” to find a “solution” to the scrapped production-sharing agreement, adding: "This is a country that has always been very good to us.”
Wish him luck. Or perhaps not.
posted by Luis M Garcia at 2:12 pm
2 Comments:
Delany: "they never have enough money, so we're always depending on the cycle"
The cycle of presidents in the US, he should say. When there are more restrictions on Cuba less money goes to the Cuban government's money bags. Less restrictions, the Cuban government gets more money, and might throw a bone or two Sherritt's way.
Now that there's a new president in the White House, who promises to lift restrictions, maybe possibly lift the whole embargo in the future, representing income to the Cuban government, Mr. Delaney just has to hang on a little bit more.
How can anyone not see that restrictions do infact affect the Havana Thugs?
People argue that the Cubans suffer more. Here's my theory, they've been suffering for 50 years right? If you had to choose between suffering a big dose all at once and then knowing it'd be all up hill from there, and suffering a little bit at a time, sometimes more and somtimes less, with no end in sight, what would you choose?
IMHO, the cycling of views from different adminstrations in Washington as to their Cuba policy is choosing on behalf of the Cuban people, the second of the two choices. (Suffer a little, at different levels, but with no end in sight)
They can choke on it.
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