GRA leases lands at Liliendaal for new head office

With the structural defects of the Camp Street building worsening, the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has decided the time has come for it to secure its own space and has since leased several acres of lands to build its new head office.

According to Commissioner General Godfrey Statia, the Authority has outgrown the Camp Street building, which was formerly owned by the Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) Limited. He noted that the GRA now has a complement of 1200 staff members, of which close to 900 are stationed the Camp Street building.

“So we have to get our own building and build our own building,” he said at press conference on Thursday.

To this end, the GRA Head revealed that the agency has acquired 10 acres of lands at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, which would be sufficient to accommodate the capacity of the Revenue Authority and its busy public traffic. The lands that were acquired were previously earmarked for the construction of a hotel by Indian hotelier – Sun and Sands Hotels.

The sod was turned in 2014 for the construction of the hotel but it was subsequently reported that the company failed to fulfil payments to the Guyana Lands and Survey Commission (GLSC) for the 12 acres of lands and as such, the project has been stalled.

But according to Statia at Thursday’s press conference, the GRA has acquired the plot of land through a lease agreement with the Lands and Surveys Commission. Pointing out that he is not concerned about how the lands got back into the hands of the Commission, the GRA Boss noted that they secured the lands for 50 years.

Moreover, he noted that currently, they are trying to get the architect’s design of the building completed to submit to Cabinet for its approval.

“It may not be completed on my stint but I would like to assure you, we would soon have a building that would house the GRA,” he posited.

With regards to the Camp Street building, Statia went on to outline that the build leaks heavily and as such, the GRA recently obtained Cabinet’s approval to construct a structure over the current roof of the building so as to stop the leakage.

“The building that we inherited or we’re in, if you go in you’ll see that it has sunk; it’s been sinking all the time. Some days when it rains you have as much as three inches of water in some rooms. And as a matter of fact, I passed instructions for them to bore the sides to drain the water out,” he told reporters.

The Commissioner General added that in order to determine the extent of the building’s defects, they had a team from the Public Infrastructure Ministry conduct an assessment and highlight what needs to be done. They also asked the persons who are actively involved in the construction of the building some 20 years ago.

Industrial Fabrication Inc (INFAB) has been contracted to carry out the works on the $57 million project and according to the GRA Head, the contractor is now making preparations to commence construction in two weeks’ time.