…MMA/DA chairman rubbishes land-grabbing allegation

CHAIRMAN of the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary Agricultural Development Authority (MMA/ADA) Kelvin Saul has rubbished claims by two leading members of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic that he has been recently granted 10,000 acres of land in Region

Five (Mahaica/Berbice) as part of a land-grabbing scheme prior to elections in 2020.
The claims were published in the Kaieteur News under the captions: Conflict of Interest? MMA/ADA chairman leased 10,000 acres in Mahaica – documents dated Dec 25, 2019 and 10,000 acres Mahaica lands leased… Unusual for chairman to benefit dated Dec 27, 2019.

Saul told the Guyana Chronicle  that in  August  2014  himself  and  three other persons registered under the name McAgriculture Trading and Investment Services  (MATIS) were granted  permission  to occupy land titles SFP DEM 21/14 from the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC). The SFP DEM 21/14 is a block of approximately 10,609 acres of state Lands lying on either side of Captain Creek In Region Five — in effect the same land mentioned in the Kaieteur News articles.

This land Saul  said, was  essentially forest land in the hinterland and Intermediate Savannahs and MATIS  focused on husbandry and harvesting of forestry products with charcoal production through systematic and sustained tree-felling and land-clearing. He stressed: “I was not and never have been the sole owner of this lease,” he said. In January 2016 (MATIS) took a decision to diversify into other related agricultural activities. The conversion from forestry to crops required the intervention/permission of the MMA/ADA and to this end an application was submitted to the MMA in January 2016 to lease the said block of land for agricultural purposes.

Subsequently on August 8, 2019, the GFC which had granted the lease in 2014 formally informed the Minister of Agriculture and the MMA/ADA, that it had no objection to the conversion and to the granting of a related lease by the MMA. He said: “As per protocol I recused myself from the MMA/ADA discussions in 2016 on the conversion and in any event, I was not a member of the committee that discussed the matter, neither was I the chairman of the MMA/ADA at the time.”

The MMA/ADA subsequently approved the conversion. Saul said that he was very surprised when he read the two articles based on allegations made by Mr Harry Gill and Mr Vickchand Ramphal of the PPP/C that claimed that he had obtained the land from the MMA during this year as part of a pre-election “land-grabbing scheme.” He said: “I wish to reiterate, and there is some irony here, that the lease for the 10,000 acres of land was obtained by MATIS in 2014 from the PPP/C administration and not from the present administration. This is no 2019 land-grabbing exercise, MATIS had the 10,000-odd acres legally since 2014 and we got it from the PPP/C.”

The subsequent MATIS application to the MMA which is the current excuse for controversy was merely for a conversion of the use of the land from forestry to agricultural purposes. “The indecent haste of these PPP/C  persons in making baseless allegations against MATIS; impugning my integrity as an official, is sad to say a basic modus operandi of some of the activists of this party,” Saul said.

He said: “I am  not excluding the legal option  against this sickening  attempt to tarnish my reputation by those who are not above telling lies,  or who fail to do due diligence before making allegations against law-abiding persons.”