Ed Ahmad’s GuySuCo land deal looks
like giveaway
‘We are deeply concerned about many of the financial transactions of the Jagdeo regime’- Granger
“We are deeply concerned about many of the financial transactions embarked on by the Jagdeo regime between 1999 and 2011. The Ed Ahmad land deal is one of them. Of course there have been mega projects— the Marriott hotel, the Specialty Hospital, the Amaila Falls and so on.” That was A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Leader, retired Brig. David Granger, commenting on the 17 acres
Leader of APNU David Granger
of GuySuCo (Guyana Sugar Corporation) land at Leonora, West Coast Demerara that was sold to close friend of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, businessman Ed Ahmad for the purpose of creating jobs but instead is now being developed for housing. The land was sold by the government’s asset holding company, NICIL (National Industrial and Commercial Investments Ltd). In announcing the sale, NICIL and the Privatisation Unit had said that the use of the land was restricted to value-added wood processing operations. The sale of the land was made to one of Ahmad’s companies, South American Woods Incorporated to the tune of $80Million or $4.9 million per acre. The conditions of sale were that the company would have established a factory to create jobs for persons. The agreement to this condition was the factor which governed the price at which it was sold, disregarding that condition, the land is now worth $600 Million. What caused much of a stir is the fact that the controversial NICIL is involved in the suspicious land deal. NICIL, which is headed by Winston Brassington, reportedly piloted this deal with Ahmad. Both Government and NICIL have publicly stated that they were unaware of the new arrangements. An investigation into the breach of the land deal was reportedly conducted by NICIL. Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, had later said, “I saw a legal brief prepared by stakeholders who said that this matter needed to be pursued legally. “GuySuCo will have to pursue it legally since we (NICIL) were only acting as an agent. I am a board member of NICIL and we provided expertise in the leasing arrangements, so this matter will not be unattended to or left swept under the mat.” His statements came under fire from David Patterson of the Alliance for Change (AFC) who had said, “It is incorrect for Dr. Luncheon to place the onus on GuySuCo to pursue legal recourse. “: The establishment of a wood processing plant was part of his bid…Ed Ahmad’s bid was accepted since it was deemed
Businessman Ed Ahmad
to be creating jobs.” “If NICIL had advertised the land for housing a lot more persons may have been interested thus allowing GuySuCo to get more money for the lands…This is a sweetheart deal, for one of their friends (Ed Ahmad), who never had any intentions of doing anything other than profiting from the deal. “The onus is on the government to enforce the articles of this deal and the people of Guyana once again, have been short changed,” Patterson had said. APNU’s Granger said, “We have been calling for greater scrutiny of these financial transactions and it would be our position as far as possible when we have discovered any malpractice that those transactions be halted, exposed to scrutiny and corrected.” According to the APNU leader, “We support the call for greater transparency so that the country as a whole derives full benefit from the disposal of state assets. Once state lands are going to be disposed of there has to be a bidding process, there has to be a competitive process so that everybody gets an opportunity but this looks like a giveaway.” He said, also, that at the secondary level there has been the work that is being done by “NICIL and the movement of state funds away from the control of the Consolidated Fund and out of the purview of the National Assembly. “Now we have the actual misbehaviour of a State Corporation and other state agencies.” NICIL itself has been embroiled in a number of questionable transactions, including its privatization of the Sanata Complex in Ruimveldt, which was sold cheaply to Queens Atlantic, headed by Jagdeo’s best friend, Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop. NICIL’s point man, Winston Brassington, is at the centre of a number of questionable deals including the Marriott Hotel and financial arrangements of the Berbice River Bridge. Ahmad was charged by the US Federal authorities for his involvement in a massive real estate fraud scheme. In October 2012,
Headof NICIL Winston Brassington
during a plea deal in a New York court, he was found guilty of knowingly and intentionally conspiring to defraud several lending institutions over a period of 15 years.
