Vergenoegen businessman denies claims of land dispossession

Vergenoegen businessman Shiraz Ali is refuting claims made by Joan Straughn, at last Wednesday’s Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into African ancestral land matters, that her family, under former President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, were dispossessed of lands that were handed to him.
Straughn said that in March of 2000, former President Jagdeo caused their family land at Parika, East Bank Essequibo (EBE) to be taken away and given to Ali, the owner of Two Brothers Gas Station.
According to Straughn, the land which was leased to the gas station owner contained a parcel which legitimately belongs to her family as well as a section of the sea defence reserve that provides access to it.
Straughn told the CoI that the land in question was given to Ali by the Sea Defence Board (SDB) in 2009, and the businessman is now in the processes of building a Bulk Fuel Storage thereon — a project that has since been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after having met all the requirements.
But Ali, in a release, posited that he has “all the legal documentation for the land that is being claimed by Straughn. “And I am willing to make them available to the commission”, Ali has said.
Ali said the claim that Jagdeo gave him the land was preposterous, since he was never friendly with the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Administration, given his well-known support of the People’s National Congress (PNC) long before Jagdeo even held a ministerial position.
Straughn told the CoI that her family had spent in excess of million battling Ali; but the Two Brothers Gas Station proprietor, in refuting her contentions, has said that this is not true.
In substantiating his claims, Ali, in his statement, said: “On August 12, 2010, in the High Court of the Supreme Court of Judicature, before Chief Justice Ian Chang, I won a case against Violet Baptist, Garfield Strans (Straughn) and Guy Gold Inc., throwing out an injunction filed by the aforementioned.”

Moreover, “On January 6, 2011, Chief Justice Ian Chang ordered the case by Straughn, this time by her Power of Attorney Mark Levy, ‘deemed abandoned and incapable of being revived’.”
According to Ali, upon being granted the lease by the Sea Defence Board, he had to satisfy a number of requirements of the board, one of which was ensuring that the sea defence is kept.
Ali said he spent millions to reach the Sea Defence Board’s and the Environmental Protection Agency’s requisite standards for the land, and that the High Court ruling against the Straughn injunction compounds the legality of the land belonging to him.
The Vergenoegen businessman maintains that he would willingly appear before the CoI, once called-upon, with all the required and legal documentation. Ali also maintains that he is not allied to the PPP, and moreso former President Jagdeo.
Meanwhile, Ali has also been accused by Norman Dalrymple, Secretary of the Vergenoegen Agri Producers Co-op Society Limited, of claiming the society’s land. Dalrymple told the CoI that the Agri Producers Co-op Society had experienced “Government interference and racism under Jagdeo’s rule of Guyana, owing to Ali’s political connection.”
However, Ali categorically denied this, and in refuted Dalrymple’s statement, has called them “blasphemous and liable” while reiterating that he’s not friendly with the PPP.
Ali, in his statement, said that since 1987 he was granted legal documented permission by the Government of Guyana to occupy the land for cattle grazing purposes — something he posits he still does until this day.
According to the businessman, “In 1995, Honourable Justice Burch-Smith ruled against the Ankoko Sugar Producers Co-op Society in a case that had been before the High Court since 1991. In fact, the Ankoko Sugar producers Co-op Society (now Vergenoegen Agri Producers Co-Op Society Limited) were ordered to pay Ali $10,000 after the matter was dismissed for the now contested land.”
Ali maintains that he had always followed the legal process when conducting business, and that under the PPP rule, more so that of Jagdeo, he had faced several up-hill tasks, especially with the establishment of Two Brothers Gas station because of his political affiliation with the PNC.