No action yet on controversial Red House lease

Government is still to act on the controversial Red House lease agreement that was made by the former PPP/C-led administration and Attorney-General Basil Williams yesterday said that action would be taken “within a reasonable time”.

Red House, which is now a repository of documents and information about late President Dr. Cheddi Jagan, came up for much public discussion after Minister of State Joseph Harmon, in August last year, disclosed that the PPP/C administration had granted a 99-year lease to the Cheddi Jagan Research Inc, a private company closely associated with the PPP/C, at a rate of $1,000 per month. The government had labelled the deal “criminal” and had signalled its intention to investigate it.

Yesterday, Williams maintained that the desire of the current government is to have information on all the past presidents housed at Red House.

“As I have said repeatedly, we are really encouraging the relevant parties to be understanding in this matter so that there would be some consensus in moving forward,” he said, when asked if steps would be taken for this to be done.

He said the government has had talks with the relevant PPP officials “and I haven’t heard from them since…so we don’t expect to hear any noises when we are forced to take actions unilaterally.”