in light of questionable sales, leasing of lands in Georgetown, other LAAs
IN light of questionable sale and leasing of lands in Georgetown and the Plaisance/Industry Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, on Wednesday, said that the government will be supporting the audit of any Local Authority Areas (LAAs) where mismanagement and questionable transactions are prevalent.
The Vice-President used the example of issues at the Plaisance/Industry NDC regarding ancestral lands, which might have been leased out to the point where there needs to be an audit to bring resolution to the issue.

“Anywhere that there are questions that are publicly raised about lack of accountability, there should be an audit. In this case, we’ve had at least three instances where there were complaints about the sale of land in Plaisance by the NDC.
“We’ve had three public cases that were in the newspapers, so I feel that it is only fair to the people that thus NDC says exactly what happened and the best way to do that is to have an audit. So, anywhere there is question of accountability, we would have to do an audit,” Dr. Jagdeo said.
According to the Vice-President, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) will be using the inroads gained in many of the LAAs to push for better accountability, whether the party has a majority or not.

In cases where the party may not have a majority, according to Dr. Jagdeo, there is consideration to have the audits ordered by central government.
“Through the ministry we can direct the audit and we will do so,” the Vice-President said.
He acknowledged too that there are still remaining concerns over similar selling and leasing of lands in the capital city through the Mayor and City Council (MCC), which is controlled by the A Partnership of National Unity (APNU).

There has also been reported cases of obscure transactions involving the writing off or wavering of taxes to businesses arbitrarily without proper records of how amounts are arrived at or how the agreement came about.
“I am concerned about Georgetown too. Georgetown is another place where I know for sure and I raised this on the campaign trail that there are some individuals who have been identifying plots of land owned by the city and going by private businessmen to get them sold or give them leases in exchange for payment on the side.
“Unfortunately some of those same individuals are backed by APNU on the City Council. APNU have a way of spinning things, you have to admire them for telling the big lies and stick with them,” Dr. Jagdeo said.

In 2018, during a Commission of Inquiry (COI) into City Hall it was uncovered that the Council had leased a land on Lombard Street referred to as the “Sussex Street Wharf,” despite not having ownership of the land.
After the businessman spent considerable money developing the area, and paying the lease, he was later approached by two other entities that claimed ownership of the property. It remains unknown how that issue was resolved.

That very COI also unearthed cases where businesses were given tax waivers by the then Town Clerk, but was later told to pay over millions to the Council.
The PPP has gained 11 seats on the 30-seat council; this is an increase from the seven seats the party had at the last Local Government Elections (LGEs). And the party hopes to use its increased voice to deal with some of these known issues at the Council

“We will be pushing heavily our 11 councilors in there to live stream the proceedings. I hope they will accept live streaming of proceedings, and secondly we want to find out about all the land deals done in the city. And anybody who has to have a waiver of the taxes it must be done through a transparent open process.
“Not the mayor and a group of councilors negotiating with businessmen. Where you owe $10 million in taxes you also owe $10 million, but one person gets $5 million written off and another gets $3 million written off and another person gets $2 million written off. That is what they’re good at doing all of that…that has to change. That is important for us we’re watching it carefully,” Dr. Jagdeo said.