Teixeira slates appearance of SOCU head at lands inquiry

Gail Teixeira

PPP/C MP and parliamentary whip, Gail Teixeira says the Head of SOCU, Sydney James has no business appearing before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on lands and it appears to have strayed from its gazetted terms of reference.

When James appeared before the CoI on Wednesday he testified about a number of matters including the Special Organised Crime Unit’s (SOCU) probe of the controversial Pradoville 2 housing scheme at Goedverwagting on the East Coast of Demerara. The CoI heard on Wednesday that the area in which the housing scheme is situated might have been ancestral lands owned by the descendants of freed African slaves.

In a statement last night  on proceedings so far, Teixeira noted that the  Terms of Reference (ToR) gazetted on March 11 listed the objective of the CoI as “To examine and make recommendations to resolve all issues and uncertainties surrounding the claims of Amerindian Land titling, the individual, joint or communal ownership of lands acquired by freed Africans, and any other matters relative to land titling in Guyana.”