THE People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration has “left some deep dark holes” for the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Government to fill, Minister of State Joseph Harmon said, as he reacted to the High Court ruling by Justice Brassington Reynolds ordering the government to pay over $1.7B in damages to Toolsie Persaud Limited (TPL).

The government and National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) had argued that TPL was no longer the owner of several blocks of land at Turkeyen on the East Coast of Demerara, including the plot that Movie Towne is being constructed on, but the Court ruled in the contrary. Justice Reynolds ruled that TPL is the rightful owner to the plots of land, in accordance with the 1987 agreement which was signed after they were purchased from the then People’s National Congress (PNR) administration. In 2011, under the PPP administration, NICIL sold a section of the lands to Multicinemas Guyana Inc. for $187M. It is there that Movie Towne is being constructed.

On Monday, Minister Harmon offered his opinion on the situation. “The previous administration, they left some deep dark holes which we have to fill, and have to fill out of the public’s purse, this cannot be fair.”

According to Harmon, Cabinet has not deliberated on the ruling and as such a position has not yet been taken on the way forward. ‘It is something which we will have to discuss as a Cabinet, but it just goes to show the levels to which this country had sunk under the PPP and the huge amount of debt that they have created for us. We have had no benefit whatsoever from that, the PPP sold the land to persons who are friendly to them at a price, so the benefit was with those persons but now the burden becomes that of us. That cannot be fair,” Minister Harmon lamented.

In July 2015, the APNU+AFC Government agreed to pay the Surinamese Beverage Company RUDISA International NV, US $6.2M in keeping with a ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The monies had been collected by the PPP Government as a form of environmental tax, but the Court ruled that the tax then was in breach of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC).

Then, in May, 2017 the CCJ ruled in favour of the Trinidad-based Beverage Company, SM Jaleel and its subsidiary, ordering the Government to repay millions of dollars to the companies for environmental taxes paid in violation of the RTC. The breach had occurred under the PPP administration.

Also in 2017, Justice Rishi Persaud had ruled that Dipcon Engineering recover from the government the sum of US$665,032.17 for road-building and construction works undertaken for, and at the request of the government, along with the sum of US$1,563,368.50 for increased costs incurred by Dipcon at the request of the government, in the course of undertaking the aforementioned work.
The works were carried out under the PPP administration.