Members of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) African ancestral land ownership. From left: Commissioners Berlinda Persaud, Professor Rudolph James, David James, Chairman Rev. George Chuck-A-Sang, Paulette Henry, Lennox Caleb, and Carol Khan James. (Commission of Inquiry photo)
August 22,2017 Source
The Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into African ancestral land ownership began hearings yesterday with a significant portion of the first day’s proceedings being dedicated to questions pertaining to the allocation of lots in the controversial ‘Pradoville 2’ Housing Scheme.
The CoI, chaired by Reverend George Chuck-A-Sang, with Berlinda Persaud, Professor Rudolph James, David James, Paulette Henry, Lennox Caleb, and Carol Khan James as commissioners, heard testimony from several witnesses at the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC).
The CoI is tasked with examining and making recommendations to resolve all the issues and uncertainties surrounding the individual, joint or communal ownership of land acquired by freed Africans and other matters relative to land titling.
Alluding to the fact that there have been instances where politicians worldwide have transferred lands to themselves, Commissioner James went on to reference ‘Pradoville 2,’ located at Sparendaam-Goedverwagting, and asked whether the application had passed through the hands of Michael Hutson, who was on the witness stand at the time.
Hutson, the Manager of Land Administration at the GL&SC, related that the application had not passed through him, and added that the government holding company National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), through which the transaction was done, has the tendency to “intermeddle” in the affairs of the GL&SC.
“We have a situation where one of the overlapping jurisdictions or anomaly is that there is a private company, NICIL, which intermeddles…it is still in existence and it is still holding on to large plots of land that used to be the bauxite mining lands. They’re still holding on to them and privatizing them, functioning as a private land administration agency to the government,” Hutson stated.
“And it’s our view that based on order #36 of 2004, NICIL should have only kept lands that had infrastructural development on it for privatization and should have reverted all other lands under the authority of the commissioner of lands and surveys,” he added.
Hutson related to the commission that discussions on the issue are currently ongoing.
Meanwhile, Rene Duesbury, Manager of Surveys at GL&SC, told the tribunal that he was satisfied that all statutory requirements were followed in relation to its allocation.
Duesbury also stated that the request for land at Goedverwagting came in from NICIL, but noted that his department did not survey, but merely did a conveyance of the plan, which he pointed out is “nothing new.”
Asked if he was satisfied that the statutory requirements were followed in that instance, Duesbury responded yes, and recalled that he had been called by the commissioner several times to confirm that the plan was finished.
He also recalled seeing a draft plan in relation to the Goedverwagting scheme. Asked if the lands in that area are ancestral lands, Duesbury said he can only make such a pronouncement based on documentation and he had not seen any.
Director of Operations at the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) Denise Tudor told the commission that she could not say if there was a breach in the protocol in the access of the lands, although she admitted that the application for the lands did not follow the normal procedure.
She stated that the records for Pradoville were not done in the usual manner and so the documentation was not in her department.
Tudor, under examination by commission counsel Darren Wade, said she is unaware of former President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo being allotted two plots of land and reiterated that she does not know anything of that allocation as it did not go through the normal procedure.
The manager went on to outline the steps that such an allocation would usually follow, and stated that in the case of Pradoville, none of that was done. Tudor noted that the transfer documents should have been signed at the CH&PA, and payments should have also been made through the organisation.
She said that based on her limited knowledge on the matter, there is no documentation to confirm the transaction and no application in the system. She did, however, note that at least three persons with lots in the area were previously allocated lots in other schemes and they were subsequently refunded.
The allocations in Pradoville 2 by Jagdeo and members of his Cabinet and other officials are now the subject of a criminal investigation.
Land Authority
Commissioner of the GL&SC Trevor Benn told the tribunal that one of the biggest issues with land management in Guyana is the confusion that surrounds which agency holds authority.
He stated that the GL&SC is empowered to oversee all public lands and has responsibilities for leasing and surveying those lands. However, he also related that there are currently around 15 agencies that deal with land locally, which he acknowledged causes confusion among citizens, who do not know where the authority lies.
Benn related that since his tenure as commissioner and CEO, the commission has been “inundated” with complaints from the public about land management anomalies, such as instances where more than one party was allocated a house lot.
“…Currently we have certain powers vested in the Minister of Indigenous Affairs through the Amerindian Act, which may or may not contradict with the State Land Act and the Guyana Lands and Surveys Act. We have the MMA, and you have Forestry and GT&T and so on and so on. So, the opportunity is ripe for us to review all of these acts and to delineate very clearly the areas of responsibility of individual agencies,” Benn stated.
He went on to advise that the acts related to land management be reviewed. Benn noted too that the issue of ancestral lands is not within any organisation’s ambit and that there is no mandate for GL&SC to address ancestral lands, but rather public lands, which he said seems to suggest that ancestral lands fall under that umbrella.