By Marvin Cato | HGP Nightly News|
GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — Prominent attorney Nigel Hughes has warned that the worsening financial stalemate between the government and Austrian healthcare engineering giant VAMED Engineering GmbH sends a dangerous signal to the international investment community, portraying Guyana as a jurisdiction that does not honor its own admissions of liability.
Speaking in his capacity as Managing Partner of Hughes, Fields & Stoby—the law firm representing VAMED’s corporate interests—the learned attorney revealed that the state’s own independent engineers, VICAB, have explicitly calculated and certified the government’s current indebtedness to VAMED at €37.94 million. Despite this formal administrative acknowledgment, the Ministry of Health has refused to disburse the funds, prompting the company to move forward with plans for international arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
“In the international financial world, there are specific instruments that carry immediate consequences and severe legal implications,” Hughes explained strictly during a press briefing. “When a government’s own project engineer certifies a multi-million-euro debt, and the state subsequently turns around and declares it will not pay, it completely shatters investor confidence. It sends a message that the investment protections one would standardly expect simply do not apply when dealing with the Government of Guyana.”
The Certified Debt & Disputed Valuation Grid
While VAMED’s total global claims account for peripheral delays, inflation adjustments, and auxiliary site costs, the core certified debt has been independently validated by state-contracted engineers:
| Financial Metric / Claim Element | VAMED Corporate Ledger | VICAB (State Engineer) Audit |
| Total Baseline Contract Values | €299 Million (Pediatric & New Amsterdam Hospital megaprojects) | €299 Million (Sovereign bilateral agreements) |
| Total Outstanding Claims | €45.53 Million (Includes variations, indexation, and extra works) | Under review by Ministry of Health |
| Strictly Certified Value of Debt | €19.15 Million (Minimum undisputed work blocks) | €37.94 Million (Full certified engineering valuation) |
| Payment Status | Over 14 months of non-payment (Last disbursement: May 2025) | Acknowledged but withheld by employer |
[ CHRONOLOGY OF THE DEBT GRIDLOCK ]
│
May 2025 June-July 2026
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
▼ ▼
[ Last State Payment ] [ Legal Breakdown ]
- VAMED continues field works - State issues Intent to Terminate
- VICAB certifies €37.94M debt - Cargo stranded at port hooks
- Financing lines expire unrenewed - VAMED files for ICC Paris Arbitration
“It is incredibly bad for Guyana’s economic reputation,” Hughes argued. “You have a highly reputable international firm, a government engineer certifying the exact depth of the debt, and an administration simply refusing to pay. This has real, far-reaching implications for major global corporations looking at Guyana’s rapid development and calculating whether it is safe to bring their capital here.”
A Track Record Defended Amid Abrupt Terminations
The escalating commercial war stems from two massive Design-and-Build healthcare infrastructure contracts: the Guyana Pediatric and Maternal Hospital in Georgetown, valued at €149 million, and the New Amsterdam Hospital Campus, valued at €150 million. On June 2, 2026, the Ministry of Health abruptly issued formal Notices of Intention to Terminate both contracts, alleging structural delays, despite the government’s own failure to renew the underlying credit facility with UniCredit Bank Austria AG when it lapsed in late 2025.
VAMED’s Regional Manager, Diane Lopes, strongly defended the company’s execution of the projects, emphasizing that there has never been any formal complaint regarding the structural integrity or quality of the extensive civil works carried out at either location. VAMED has already completed heavy foundational framing, structural piling, and comprehensive architectural mapping, working for over a year without any state compensation.
Lopes maintained that the company’s global track record of delivering world-class medical facilities stands on its own. Legal experts note that by ignoring its own engineer’s certification of liability, the government faces an uphill battle in the upcoming ICC arbitration proceedings, with taxpayers potentially on the hook for millions of euros in interest penalties and damages for wrongful termination.
