PRIME Minister Moses Nagamootoo has denied having any involvement in the 2012 transfer of the State-owned ‘Red House’ in Kingston, which houses the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre, to a company run by executive members of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
Government Member of Parliament, Joseph Harmon made the disclosure in the National Assembly on Friday during his budget 2015 speech.
Harmon said the former PPP/C Government had transferred the State-owned ‘Red House’ in Kingston under a 99 year lease at Gy$1000 per month to a company named ‘The Cheddi Jagan Research Incorporated’.
“That is not all,” Harmon continued, adding that persons at the property continued to be paid by the State even though the property was transferred to a private company.
Harmon went on to name the Board members of the private company as former President Donald Ramotar; former PPP/C Local Government Minister Kellawan Lall; former National Communications Network (NCN) General Manager Mohammed Sattaur; and just retired Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Ministry Hydar Ally.
Other members included the late former President Janet Jagan, and the late Navin Chandarpal along with Derek Jagan; Geoffrey Da Silva; Michael Khan; Dionne Fries; James Rose; and Ariel Ramkarran as Secretary of the Board.
Harmon’s statement was challenged by Opposition MP Irfaan Ali, who alleged that Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo was the Lawyer who had drawn up the contract for the transfer of the State-owned property in 2012. The Prime Minister was not in the Parliament Chamber at the time of Ali’s outburst.
The Government MP said the State Asset Recovery Unit would be looking into the recovery of the property. That unit was set up under the new Administration to recover state assets transferred on or before the May 11 election.
Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo later that evening used his budget speech to pronounce on the allegation. He rejected it as an attempt to “use me as a fig leaf for their improper and illegal conduct of trying to hijack a Trust and put it in the name of a few cronies.”
“They said I had something to do with a document that leased the Red House for 99 years, to a company comprising the top cronies of the PPP,” Nagamootoo said in the National Assembly, adding, “I have never been identified with that project.”
Nagamootoo said he left the PPP in 2011, which is one year before the transfer document was drawn up. The PM further called the move a “cowardly attack” on his person.

By Derwayne Wills