Govt still coming to grips with amount of land sold to family, friends by APNU/AFC – VP Jagdeo

…says efforts still being made to recover

The Government is still in the process of coming to grips with all the land that the former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government sold to friends and family, while in office.
This is according to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, during an interview which was broadcast on social media. He made it clear, however, that even as the Government takes stock of the land sold out, it will continue to make an effort to recover these lands.

“You recall the land policy. Up to now we can’t figure (out) how much land they sold, to whom, we’re trying to recover this. After the elections, (they) put out a gazette signed order to transfer (land) to over 100 persons, plots of land in Linden, to cronies,” Jagdeo said.
According to Jagdeo, a lot of the land was distributed to friends and family of the former APNU/AFC Government, not to ordinary people who were struggling to get a piece of land. He challenged persons to check who benefitted from most of the land distribution, noting that in many cases they were politically connected.
“Now, those people are going to get 1000 houses being built, because the President promised that in Linden. And they just got another 400 lots at Amelia’s ward. But you check. In five years, (a lot of the) persons who got plots of land were all political connected.”
Days after they came to power in August 2020, the new PPP/C Government had announced that all of the land deals conducted by the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC) since the December 2018 passage of the No-Confidence Motion (NCM) would be reviewed.
In a statement at the time, Attorney General Anil Nandlall had said that “A review of all leases, licenses and permissions to occupy public lands, granted since the 21st day of December 2018, will be conducted. On the 21st day of December 2018, the APNU/AFC Government was defeated by a No-Confidence Motion passed in the National Assembly. As a result, thereof, it was reduced to a caretaker status only.”
Despite being toppled by a motion of no-confidence that was tabled by the then PPP/C Opposition and was passed with a majority vote, the APNU/AFC Administration remained in office and instead of operating in a caretaker mode in accordance with the Constitution, continued in a “business as normal” manner.
In fact, the coalition had challenged the passage of the NCM but it was validated by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in June 2019, which ruled that elections should be called within three months as stipulated in the Constitution. But elections were not held until March 2020 – some nine months after the CCJ ruling and more than one year after the passage of the motion.
During that time, the caretaker coalition conducted many underhand deals including the massive giveaway of prime State lands to political affiliates. In fact, even after the March 2, 2020 elections, the APNU/AFC Government, in its waning days, had transferred lands to a number of companies through the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
At one point in 2020, the Government of Guyana had called in the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to investigate the former APNU/AFC Government’s questionable transferals of State land.
In July 2020, just before the then Government left office, businessman Glen Lall had filed legal proceedings against the APNU/AFC Administration over its rush to finalise land deals despite elections being held and the National Recount showing their loss at the polls.
The application alleged that the Government’s transfer of lands on June 11, 2020, was unlawful, ultra vires, null and void. According to gazetted orders, a number of private companies received prime land on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD). However, Lall’s case was dismissed in the High Court in August 2020. (G3)