…GLSC on the lookout for money launderers buying up state lands
THE Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC) said that while it is taking steps to speed-up the process for the leasing of state lands it is has been collaborating with agencies such as the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), to guard against the purchasing of lands for the purposes of money laundering.

“We are following the anti-money laundering law in relation to large sums of money being paid over in cash, for example, by our prospective lease holders,” Chief Executive Officer of the GLSC, Trevor Benn told a news conference on Tuesday, adding, “we are on the look-out” despite the fact that “we are paper-based”.

The US Department of State’s Inter-national Narcotics Control Strategy Report for 2005 had named convicted drug lord Roger Khan, saying then that drug traffickers appeared to be gaining a significant foothold in Guyana’s timber industry. The report mentioned that in 2005, the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) had granted a State Forest Exploratory Permit for a large tract of land in Guyana’s interior to Aurelius Inc.- a company that was controlled by Khan. Such concessions in the remote interior may allow drug traffickers to establish autonomous outposts beyond the reach of the Guyanese law enforcement,” the US report had stated. The publication of the report resulted in a freeze of the forestry transaction.

Benn told reporters that unless there is good reason, persons could not be blacklisted based on newspaper reports but on concrete information from SOCU (Special Organised Crime Unit) and the FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit). “We don’t process those applications,” he said, when asked if FIU and SOCU advises the GLSC what is done.

Only recently, Attorney General Basil Williams disclosed that SOCU continues to receive referrals from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and is conducting investigations into money laundering offences involving over $900B. The AG was at the time making his contributions to this year’s budget debates in the National Assembly. Director of the FIU, Matthew Langevine had also told this newspaper that his unit continues to work together in monitoring new cases of money laundering with improved intelligence analysis. The FIU director said that the unit has had a few new cases which have been passed on to SOCU.

OPENING NEW LANDS
Meanwhile, with approximately 32,000 applications within its system, Benn said the commission is taking critical steps to open up new lands to meet the growing demands of the citizens. At the same time, the commission will be moving aggressively to clamp down on squatting and in possession of non-performing leases.

Benn told the news conference that in 2017 the GLSC received a number of Expressions of Interests (EOIs) and applications for lands and, while it has had many success stories, its inability to issue allocations within a timely manner continues to be one of its greatest challenges.

To date there are approximately 32,000 applications for lands within the system, some of which date back to the 1980s. “We have applications, 32,000 applications on (our) records still to be processed, and, so, every day we receive new applications, new expressions of interest some of them are converted into application,” Commissioner Benn said as he painted a picture of the situation.

DEVELOPING NEW AREAS
Cognisant of the situation, GLSC is forging ahead with its plans to develop new areas not only for residential purposes. The Commissioner recalled that it was in the late 1960s or early 1970s when the last land development scheme was developed by the commission along the Linden/Soesdyke Highway. “CHPA has done a good job over the years with that (developing lands for housing), but Lands and Surveys has not managed to keep up, we want to change that to open, not only for residential but for commercial purposes, industrial and agricultural purposes,” he posited.

While stating clearly that squatting and informal occupation of public lands are illegal, Commissioner Benn said that GLSC is fully aware of some of the issues that give rise to such illegal activity. “Let’s face it a lot of people squat because the process is too long-winded. We are not allowing them to squat, we are going after those people who squat but the process is so long-winded, imagine you are waiting since the 1980s for a lease, five years, 10 years, for one lease. So we have to change that,” he explained. Benn said: “people are desperate, they want some place to live and the Government system has not created the momentum to allow for the speedy development of new housing areas for people.”

Commissioner Benn has been working with his staff at GLSC to accelerate the rate in which land applications are processed. It is his hope that within the not so distant future, applications can be processed within three months. But while the Commission is implementing the necessary measures to reduce the backlog of applications, it is also conducting the necessary due diligence to ensure that those awarded leases are not engaged in money laundering or any other illegal activities. GLSC has been collaborating with agencies such as the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to guard against the purchasing of lands for the purposes of money laundering.

NON-PERFORMING LEASES
That aside, non-performing leases and informal subletting remain as stumbling blocks for the commission. Non-performing leases refer to the issue of non-payment of land rent and non-beneficial occupation of public lands. It is estimated that 40% of all leases issued by the Commission is non-performing. Defaulters are being written to on the issue, and steps are being taken to repossess lands, especially those non-performing.

This 40%, Commissioner Benn, noted accounts for millions of dollars which stymies the commission’s operations. He recalled that upon entering office in 2016, the commission was millions of dollars in the “red” due to issues such as non-performing leases.
Because of its financial situation, there were a deficiency in equipment, limited renovations done to buildings and in terms of liquid cash the commission was “close to $200M in the red.”

Since then, the Commission has made steady progress in addressing these challenges. “When I arrived, the Commission was in excess of a $188M in the red, a $188M, today we have over $200M in the bank account but this is even after we would have expended on a number of projects across the country, we still have that, and I believe that it is largely due to the efforts we made in 2017, in particular, to change the way we operate in terms of dealing with potential lease holders, so we now have a more rigorous system in collecting our revenues and accounting for it,” Commissioner Benn explained. For 2017, the GLSC raked in a total of $900M as compared to $250M in 2014.