…Plaisance resident says land was bought by slaves
..SOCU points to massive discrepancies in transfer

THE Special Organized Crimes Unit (SOCU) has found a number of discrepancies in the transfer of lands by an order signed by Former President, Bharrat Jagdeo, for the Pradoville Two housing scheme at Sparendaam on the East Coast of Demerara. And a resident of Plaisance has come forward with claims that the land was bought by slaves in the early 1800s.
Head of SOCU, Assistant Commissioner, Sydney James told the Land Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday that a vesting order, #6/2004, was made by Jagdeo on February 5, 2004, dissolving the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation and the Guyana Television (GTV).
The assets of the two entities were then transferred to the National Communications Network (NCN) and the National Industrial Commercial Investments Holdings (NICIL). Among the assets transferred to NCN was the area of land at North Sparendaam, ECD, comprising 649,663 square feet of land.

James in his testimony said that SOCU received an audit report into the Pradoville project; the audit was done by Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram in December 2015. James said SOCU’s investigations have been completed into the findings of the audit and the file is with the police legal advisor.
James submitted a statement to the COI which he noted points to the discrepancies related to the transfer, vesting and transfer of those lands under the Public Corporations Act. “It suggests that the order vesting the area of Sparendaam and Goedverwagting known as Pradoville 2 into a government company–National Communications Network Inc–that land was never sold or legally exchanged by the National Communications Network as preorder, vesting order or other instruments effective to remove the ownership of the land from National Communications Network, ”James said.
James said that an investigation done by SOCU found that for the Goedverwagting/Sparendaam lands, there was a transport , #381 and dated November 4th , 1920 which indicated that the land consisting of 15.25 acres was transported to the then British Guiana Broadcasting company. He said during the investigations, SOCU spoke to one Fitzoy McKenzie, a resident of Plaisance who produced documents purporting to show that the area encompassing Goedverwagting /Plaisance were acquired by slaves in the early 1800s.

He told the commission that based on examinations of the documents, McKenzie had obtained the papers from the National Archives and SOCU was not able to conclusively state whether the areas mentioned by the man pertained to the same area subject to investigations. Quizzed by the CoI’s acting legal attorney, Darren Wade, James said that SOCU is also investigating an audit report for NICIL as well as the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA).
He said for the NICIL audit report, 67 land -related and separate investigations were referred to SOCU and of this number, more than 28 have been completed and submitted to the police for legal advice. Regarding the CH&PA audit, he said a number of investigations were referred and these are the subject of continuous investigations.