October 29 ,2020
The Guyana Police Force and its Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) yesterday received three files from Attorney General Anil Nandlall for the investigation of leases for several acres of prime state lands at Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara which were done without any valuation, public advertisement or Cabinet decisions.
In addition to the questionable circumstances of the leases, two sets of lands were transferred by the lease holders to the same Chinese national shortly after NICIL’s approval and in the other case, PNCR member and attorney-at-law, James Bond, was the recipient of some US$952,800 for the sale of the lease rights to a company of which he is a principal.
The Attorney General is calling on the persons who acquired the leases to come forward and relinquish the properties so that they can be reverted to the state and go through due process.
“The files have been passed to the Guyana Police Force and SOCU for onward consequential action. NICIL has been the agency that has been under review, in addition to the Lands and Surveys Commission. Those three are transactions under review and the police are investigating. The state will expend every effort to get back those lands,” Nandlall told Stabroek News yesterday.
When contacted, Bond told Stabroek News that he would not be speaking to the press on the issue. “No response,” he said. Questioned on the reason for his decision, given that it is a serious allegation, he said “I am not going to speak to the press”. Asked then who would he be speaking to, he replied “the court, the police, SOCU”.
The three respective fact sheets with documents which accompanied the letter from the Attorney General list the companies and their principals as Arken Group with principal Jermaine Richmond, A-Z Pharmaceutical with Eddie Doolal, and Avalon Jagnandan of Life 1 Pharms.
This newspaper reached out to Jagnandan, who is a member of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners’ Association and he said, “I am not going to comment at this time”.
Doolal could not be reached for comment.
Of significance was that Bond was the attorney hired by NICIL to look after its interests in the Peter’s Hall lands and it was he who drafted all of the lease documents.
Noted in all of the documents, and contrary to NICIL’s standard protocol for leases, there is the omission of the clause which stipulates that the lessee or tenant may not sell the lands. In this instance however, they were given the option to “part with the possession and/or propose and/or dispose of the whole or any part of the demised property…”
In the case of Arken Group Inc, located at 34 Third Street Alberttown, it was leased 20.8 acres in four plots; three at 5.0 acres and the other at 5.8 acres. The lands were not advertised and as such there was no Board or Cabinet approval to the deal. The date of execution of the lease was stated as 9th May 2018 and the company agreed to a 20-year lease.
The annual cost for the lease was US$16,224. For the 20-year period, it would mean that the company would have been required to pay US$324,480.
No restrictions applied and the business sold its leasehold rights of 10 acres to Glass Holdings Inc, on October 10th 2019 for $200 million. Glass Holdings paid the sum in two installments of US$195,000 and US$757,000 and according to the terms of their agreement with ARKEN, was given an irrevocable Power of Attorney. They were required to continue payments and meet the terms of the lease.
Shocked
However, according to Managing Director of Glass Holdings Inc, Glenn Low-A-Chee, when he went to pay his lease fee he was shocked to learn that the deal had come under scrutiny.
“The Lease Agreement and all documents and procedures to effect the transfer of the Leasehold/ Lessee rights from ARKEN to GLASS Holdings were prepared and processed in compliance with the lease (number provided) and the general rules governing the lease transfer,” Low-A-Chee wrote to new NICIL Chairman Radha Krishna Sharma, as he enquired about the purchase of the lease.
“Pending the completion of the documentation process, we had visited NICIL in early March and again in August 2020 in an attempt to pay our lease fees as the new Lessee and we were advised by Mr. Winston Mingo, Accounts Receivable Clerk in the Accounts Department, NICIL, that there was a pending jurisdictional/ restructuring issue between NICIL and Ministry of Business regarding the collection of lease fees, and as such our payment was not accepted/processed. We were advised to follow up at a later date regarding the payments,” he explained to Sharma
“Recently, we were put on notice through a public newspaper Notice that NICIL was conducting a review of the leases and subleases of the leased lands in the Eccles/Peter’s Hall area, and affected parties were required to visit the office of NICIL,” he added.
It was to that end that he said he was introducing the company and circumstances of how they acquired the lease, asking NICIL’s help “to guide us through the current evaluation process.”
He said that his company remained committed to the two plots and was willing to cooperate with the agency.
For Life 1 Pharms and A-Z Pharmaceutical, they received only $100 when they transferred their lease to Chinese national Juanfen Yu, possibly as only a procedural legal covering for the transfer.
Both agreements of sale were carried out on January 16 of this year.
Guyana’s Attorney General said that government will expend all necessary resources to have the lands returned to the state as the companies did not submit to NICIL, project profiles for works planned and it is unclear how they could have been given leases without the requisite criteria being met. “[They have] No project profile. The land was divested; assigned to a third party for $100 in a commercial area. 20 acres sold for less than US50 cents,” he lamented.
He is calling on the new lease owners to return the lands to the state. “To come forward and relinquish their interest and let the land revert to the state and we can begin from there and move forward,” Nandlall urged.
“Certainly we cannot turn a blind eye to such blatantly corrupt deals. Government has a duty to ensure it protects state assets and when they are divested that they are done so by a transparent process where citizens are afforded a fair opportunity and the lands are either sold at market value or some use is put to it that will be for the public good. None of these factors are present in these transactions,” the Attorney General contended.