HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon, yesterday
took the stand again in the High Court before Justice Brassington
Reynolds as the proceedings of President Bharrat Jagdeo’s libel case
against columnist Freddie Kissoon , publisher of the Kaieteur News,
Glenn Lall, and Editor, Adam Harris continued.
Nigel Hughes, head of the team representing the defendants,
questioned Dr Luncheon on the transfer of commercial properties held
by the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL)
and the locations of health and sport facilities in a bid to establish
that predominantly people of East Indian descent are the
beneficiaries.
The Cabinet Secretary responded that the policy with regard to
disposal of government assets by NICIL is laid out in the approved
Parliamentary Privatisation framework that was instituted long before
President Jagdeo took office.
Hughes sought to list the names of persons and companies to whom
such commercial properties were sold, an approach that was objected to
by the Plaintiff’s attorney, Mohabir Anil Nandlall, who said that
ethnicity cannot be verified merely by people’s names and that
evidence of share capital of companies has to be taken into
consideration as well to determine ownership.
Moreover, Nandlall stated that all the information regarding the
proposition of ownership of said properties is not available, in order
to make clear distinctions with regard to ethnicity, and that the
question was unfair to the witness.
Nandlall, several times, had to object to Hughes’ line of questioning,
which he deemed unfair to the witness.
Dr Luncheon was even asked about granting land to an external company
and again, the plaintiff’s lawyer Nandlall objected to the line of
questioning, on the ground of irrelevance to the case.
Dr Luncheon also said that the sales brought up by Hughes did not
constitute all the sales done by NICIL under President Jagdeo’s
tenure.
Also under cross-examination, Dr Luncheon listed the names of other
Afro Guyanese who purchased property from NICIL, namely the George
family and Stanford Solomon.
The Cabinet Secretary, in relation to the location of certain health
facilities, noted that the East La Penitence health centre was built in
Georgetown, under President Jagdeo’s tenure.
He also said the Olympic-sized swimming pool is located at Liliendaal,Greater Georgetown.

Several documents were put to Dr Luncheon to confirm certain
information which the document allegedly contained. However, Nandlall
objected, explaining that the witness was not competent to explain
their contents and effect.
The judge expressed the view that the documents could even befuddle
him, much less the witness.
As Hughes’ questioning continued, he sought to establish that a former
Afro Guyanese diplomat was not granted a position in the Amazon
Cooperation Treaty Organisation(ACTO), because she did not receive the
support of the Guyana Government.
Luncheon explained that he was not aware that some ACTO members had
proposed the diplomat’s name for the position. He also stated that he
was unaware that the person was not appointed because the Guyana
Government had not given its support.
The matter was adjourned to today at 09:30hrs for continuation
and ruling.
It stemmed from an article authored by Kissoon and
published in the Kaieteur News on June 28, 2010, entitled, ‘King Kong
sent his goons to disrupt the conference’, which refers to the
Guyanese Head of State as an ideological racist.
A libel case was subsequently made out against the columnist as well
as the newspaper’s editor and publisher.