CHIEF Executive Officer of the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) Mr. Geoffrey Da Silva is seeking the assistance of the Guyana Press Association (GPA) to investigate the recent reports by Stabroek News on the sale of Buddy’s International Hotel.

Da Silva said the reports, one of which was also carried in the other privately-owned Kaieteur News, should be investigated since some of the information contained within were inaccurate.

The Go-Invest Head “seriously questioned” the validity of, in particular, Tuesday’s Page One lead story in the Stabroek News that was headlined: ‘Turk paid US$25M for Buddy’s’ and which carried the ‘byline’ of a Guyana-born journalist, Judy H. Fitzpatrick, living and working in Saint Maarten.

The article was purportedly developed from an interview which the journalist claimed was conducted Monday with the new owner of the Guyanese facility, a Turkish hotelier named Sudi Ozkan and/or his Belarusian wife, Katsiaryna.

The interview was reportedly done at the hotelier’s home in Saint Maarten.

But Da Silva, speaking at a news conference at his Camp and Church Streets office, deemed the report as erroneous and indicated that he would be seeking immediate assistance of the GPA to investigate who conducted the ‘supposed’ interview, when it was done and where.

“I question very seriously who actually did this interview, when it was done, and where it was done. I don’t want to go beyond that at this time. I would like to ask the GPA to investigate it, to find out who is Judy Fitzpatrick in St. Maarten…I do question whether an interview was carried-out with Mr. Ozkan.” , a visibly agitated Da Silva told reporters.

He was adamant that no interview was conducted with the hotelier and that the hotel was not sold for US$25M, but instead US$15M.

Among the “inaccuracies” Da Silva said the article contained was that Mr. Ozkan does not own 10 hotels, but rather in excess of 35 properties in different countries.

The Go-Invest Head also unleashed some scathing criticisms at the Editor-in-Chief/Owner of Stabroek News, Mr. David DeCaires for what he termed “irresponsible journalism”.

He also lamented what he said was an apparent trend of the newspaper of being critical of every any new investment in the country, giving the impression that nothing positive seems to be happening.

It was lamented by the GO-Invest Head that the Stabroek News over the years seems to be bent on reporting the negative side of investments in Guyana despite the necessary information being provided to the newspaper.

“The impression is that nothing much is happening and that anything that is of any positive nature happening in Guyana, it always has to have a negative side. So that Guyanese in Canada and the United States will somehow have an impression that Guyana is a ‘deh’ bad country.”

He emphasized that efforts are ongoing to maintain an enabling environment to attract more investments, pointing to the many investments that are taking place and are in the pipeline.

“The kind of the investment we are getting across the board, in mining, agriculture, tourism, wood sector is significant. 312 projects, US $564M…I gave a pile of those information to Mr. De Caires in October last year but on-to-now Stabroek News has not carried anything,” he lamented.