People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo has vowed that the massive tracts of land given away in the waning days of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Administration, will be reversed should his party gain power in elections on Monday.
PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo
Jagdeo made this declaration during the final PPP rally before Monday’s polls, at the Lusignan tarmac, East Coast Demerara on Saturday that saw a massive turnout of thousands of party supporters. According to him, the APNU/AFC’s five years in Government has been dogged by scandal after scandal.
The latest has seen party financier Lloyd Singh being given 164,000 acres of prime State forest land along the Berbice River. This has loggers up in arms since they contend favouritism was shown to Singh, when they would have unsuccessfully applied for logging concessions.
“One sign of desperation, showing that APNU/AFC know they aren’t going back there, is when two days before the election they gave one of their supporters, a financier of the AFC, 164,000 acres of forest land,” Jagdeo told thousands of supporters.
Govt financier Lloyd Singh
“They know they’re not going back there. Because they could have waited next week to give him. They had to give him this week, but we’re going to take it back! Right, you want us to take it back?” Jagdeo questioned, to cheers from the crowd.
Jagdeo vowed that this land would be taken back and given to loggers who deserve it. He referred to a protest mounted last year by loggers in Ituni who had complained that their permits to cut logs had dried up and as a consequence, they could not provide for their families.
“Because it’s corrupt. And guess who is going to get it? Because this is in the Berbice River, the same people from Linden, Ituni, Kwakwani, the loggers who needed that land to feed their families.”
“You saw a protest with one man from Ituni saying, “we’re starving”. Since this Government took office, all the jobs on that corridor have been lost. So, I want to say to the people in Region 10, you’re going to get the land.
Ogle giveaway
Jagdeo also referred to another giveaway, this time 30 acres in Ogle, which was sold to develop an East Coast version of Windsor Estates, a sprawling gated community supposedly costing US$83 million and expected to feature, in addition to a man-made lake and multiple swimming pools, modern home designs along with a commercial zone to include banks, medical facilities, a shopping area and restaurants.
A section of the gathering at Lusignan ECD
“Another sign of losing is when the last week before elections, you give away 800 acres of prime land that you took from the sugar workers, just here on the East Coast. Well let me tell you, those lands will be used to build house lots for ordinary people,” Jagdeo also said.
On Friday, Guyana Times reported that some 164,000 acres of prime State forest has been allocated to Singh, just days before the March 2 General and Regional Elections. The areas under question were recently repossessed by the incumbent APNU/AFC Administration.
Several loggers in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) have since reached out to this publication to express their anger and disgust at the PNC-led caretaker Government allocation of the 164,000 acres of prime forested lands to AFC campaign financier.
The loggers explained that they had been trying for years to increase their allocations without success and it was therefore astounding that the Government would act so capriciously to show favouritism to an individual who has no prior experience in the forestry sector.
To this end, the loggers indicated that they will be protesting the massive giveaway. Guyana Times was told that the last-minute allocation of Guyana’s State forest was done via a rushed and uncompetitive process that was engineered to favour Singh.
In fact, a source at the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) told this newspaper that it is highly unusual that an area of this stocking and location had only a sole applicant.
Singh is a known financier of the AFC – the minor party in the coalition Administration. In fact, he had even funded the party’s head office located on the Kitty Railway and Embankment in Georgetown.
