…King turns up with transport days after NICIL did same

THE tale over the ownership of Lot 1 Mudflat Lombard Street, popularly known as the Sussex Street Wharf, has taken another turn, as Georgetown Town Clerk, Royston King has submitted a transport and asserts that the land belongs to the Mayor and City Council (M&CC).

Strangely, this follows a submission, earlier this month, of a copy of a different transport submitted by the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) showing that they had sole legal rights to the land. It had appeared that NICIL’s submission of a transport and other supporting documents had put the issue to rest.

However this new revelation opens new questions and puts the ownership of the property back in dispute. King submitted a copy of a transport and a sworn affidavit to the City Hall Commission of Inquiry (CoI) at Critchlow Labour College, asserting that the M&CC is the rightful owner of the property, and has rights to lease it.

Ownership of the land has been in question for some years now, ever since it was leased by the M&CC to Quick Shipping Inc., in 2016. After leasing the land, Quick Shipping was approached by both NICIL and the Guyana National Industrial Company (GNIC), who claimed rights to the land.

On October 17, attorney for NICIL, Arianne McLean, submitted a copy of a transport showing that the land is transported to Guyana National Engineering Corporation Limited (GNEC) via Land Transport #525 of 1985; and that via vesting order #13 of 2002 when GNEC dissolved all of its property, including Lot 1 Mudflat Lombard Street and were legally handed over to NICIL.

According to the transport, GNEC acquired the property in 1985, after purchasing it from the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC). According to the NICIL documents GNIC had leased the land at one point in time but that leased expired and as such GNIC has no rights to the land.

Following NICILs submission, King was summoned to the inquiry to answer to the case of leasing the property, among other allegations made against him before the commission. King’s transport and other documents, however, predate those submitted by NICIL. Further, King has now submitted a transport dated 1966 for a plot of land which he says encompasses the disputed land.

“By Transport #2803 of 1966 full and absolute title to the riparian lands abutting and contiguous to the aforesaid foreshore passed to the Mayor and Town Council of Georgetown,” King informed in his sworn affidavit, “I deny and dispute that the city council trespassed or illegally occupied property of NICIL.”

King also says that in 1958 back when the land was known as the “Sussex Street Stelling”, it was leased by the M&CC to the government as a fish marketing center. There is also an uncertainty as to which entity was leasing the land in 1995. In his affidavit, King claims that M&CC leased out the land again in 1995, this time to Fishing Investment Company Limited, and which was “filed as of record in the deeds registry as 132/99.” However 1995 is the same year that NICIL leased out the land to GNIC.

King questions the possibility of the GMC ever owning the property, and which calls into question that entities ability to sell it to GNEC, and GNEC’s ability to vest it to NICIL.
“The aforesaid wharf and facilities… is and always was in existence prior to an entity known as the Guyana Marketing Corporation coming into existence in 1963 as per Order 93 of 1963,” King stated.
King said this claim is supported by checks he made of the gazette, which turned up no evidence to support that the property was ever vested to GMC.

“On Tuesday October 23, 2018, I have personally searched and caused the staff of parliament office to search their gazette records and despite diligent searches for the periods December 12 to 31, 1963, years 1964 and 1965, we have found no notice bringing into force the vesting order in respect to the piece of land at Lombard and Sussex Streets in terms of paragraph 11(1) and (3) of the said order 97 of 1963. The reasonable and irresistible inference is that no notice was published pursuant to paragraph 11(3) of the said order 97/63 and accordingly that property was never vested or passed to GMC which therefore was incapable of passing transport to anyone,” King said.

On top of all of that, King also argued that the M&CC has been in possession of the land for the past 30 years. “I am further advised by my attorney-at-law and verily believe and contend that in the alternative, the city council has always been in adverse possession … of the said property for the statutory period of thirty years (prior to 2011) extinguishing the title of the government and accordingly has acquired prescriptive title under the provisions of the title of land (Prescription and Limitation) Act, Cap 60:02.”