Senior Finance Minister tells National Assembly

GOVERNMENT had to reverse and regularise the illegal sale of lands at Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara, that was facilitated under the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration in 2018.

This was revealed by Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh on Wednesday, while responding to questions posed by Opposition Member of Parliament Annette Ferguson during Tuesday’s sitting of the National Assembly.

Dr. Singh revealed that there was no selection by the government in relation to whom these lands were sold. However, he noted that they’d inherited a list of people who were sold lands without not only due process but without any transparent process being followed.

“In fact, Sir, the records will reflect that in 2018, under the APNU+AFC administration, government entered into lease transactions for lands on the East Bank of Demerara, including at Plantation Peter’s Hall, and granted leases that allowed the lessees to sell, with several defects, including most significantly that granted these lessees the right to sell and assign their rights in the respective properties to third parties, some of whom did exactly that, making substantial profits,” Dr. Singh said.

The foregoing, he said, was a principal defect in these transactions, as these sales and assigning of rights could be done without any reference to any State approval or State authority.

Added to this, he said that it is also a matter of public record that this was part of a series of land giveaways by the then illegal APNU+AFC government.

The government, Dr. Singh said, embarked on a process of reviewing these leases, and identifying the fundamental defects, violations and breaches, and made an effort to regularise these transactions.

He said, “We made an effort to regularise these transactions, and we engaged with all of the persons holding these lands, and some agreed to relinquish, recognising that due process was not followed; in some cases, lands had even been vested without a single cent having been paid, with no reference to Cabinet.”

During the course of the engagements, he said, while some agreed to relinquish, others opted to go to the courts to challenge the proceedings.

Against this backdrop, he noted that in some of these matters, there are pending criminal charges engaging the attention of the court.

He then emphasised that the PPP/C government did not select those persons, as the list was inherited from the previous administration.