PRIME MINISTER Moses Nagamootoo has accused the former PPP administration with turning government into a real estate agency.

The elite, he said, helped themselves and friends to prime government lands, on which some of them built mansions and resold at huge profits.

Citing the shameful and scandalous heists of state lands at “Pradoville 1” and “Pradoville 2” , the Prime Minister said that these should be the last persons in the world to criticise land distribution under the Coalition Government.

Prime Minister Nagamootoo made those remarks on Saturday evening at the Mahaica Primary School to a packed audience from the Old Road area, during a Government Outreach. He was accompanied by Sports Director, Christopher Jones, youth activist, James Bond, and Regional Vice-Chairman, Earle Lambert.

He said that he has been in public life for almost six decades and at no time, not even while he was a government minister, has he applied for a piece of state land. “I bought my own land, built my house in North Sophia, and lived there with my family for all the years while serving as a government minister,” he said to loud applause.

Mr. Nagamootoo described the attacks by the opposition against land distribution to certain persons of African descent as racist. “These are the people who gave away prime lands and state assets to their friends and party cronies, but now that Africans are getting titles, they cry foul,” he stated.

He noted three primary types of land entitlements, namely, communal title to our indigenous peoples; lease and hereditary lands on the coast, including lands that were allocated in lieu of repatriation of East Indian immigrants; and ancestral lands, portions of which had been purchased by freed African slaves. “There is enough land for all our peoples, and all are entitled equally to the 83,000 square miles of Guyana,” the Prime Minister said.

The Mahaica Old Road residents made vigorous representation for distribution of available lands for agricultural purposes, pointing out to the Government team that there are many young persons in the area who have nothing beneficial to do. Supporting their request for youth involvement in agriculture, the Prime Minister retorted, “the Devil finds work for idle hands!”

They also represented that the streets and bridges in Lima Dam, Danrade Dam, Hand-en-Veldt, Jaghai Dam and Jonestown are in dire need of maintenance, as they accused the PPP-run NDC with willful neglect of their communities.