Dear Editor,
I Anthony Vieira am a shareholder of Houston Estate and was also formerly a director of Houston. During my career I was also a sugar estate administrative manager, a director of GuySuCo and a member of parliament shadowing Robert Persaud, Minister of Agriculture. I refer to an article in your newspaper of 20th October 2019 captioned `Redstart Investments buying 52 acres at Houston/Rome’
In that article I observed the following libellous statements:
1. “Most of the land in the Houston/Rome area is owned by the Vieira family and once were sugar estates.”
2. “The area where the lands are located was the source of a legal action as the Guyana Lands and Surveys Department (GL&SC) took issue with the surveyor for the current transaction, Monize, allegedly including a state canal in lands he surveyed.”
3. “The inclusion of the canal had seen land buyers filling in the area, which the GL&SC said poses a risk of flooding since it was set up for drainage of that and surrounding areas.”
4. “Currently, most of what once the Houston Estate Canal, where airboats and estate punts once traversed, have been filled up and only a small section of the waterway remains. It is unclear what drainage systems are in place for the area.”
Statement 1 establishes for all to see that the Houston land to be acquired is the property of my family. So all statements made thereafter in the article accuses my family of illegality!
Statement 2. This is wrong and libellous, we have now placed the matter in the Supreme Court since the GL&SC erred badly in misunderstanding the matter and in underestimating our loyalty to Mr. Enrique Monize, who was wrongfully accused of filling a state-owed drain, when in fact the drain was on our land, not state land, and he did not fill it, we did. And we would like to undo the effects of the tribunal which charged that poor man for no reason at all except to save face, and I will make sure that the truth comes out in this matter in the Supreme Court.
Statement 3. We categorically deny this lie, no drainage canal whatsoever, which was used by Houston to drain not only our estate lands but the villages of Meadow Bank, Rahaman Park, Houston, Rome, Mc Doom and Agricola have been filled. The canal in question was filled in 2016 and was not on state property nor was it a drainage canal. In the recent very heavy rainfall May, June, July, August period of 2019, our drainage system worked as good as any other gravity drainage system in this country. Certainly, better than Georgetown. Houston has been draining the above-mentioned villages free of cost for 114 years. No one has ever complained about our drainage system flooding anyone.
Statement 4 is also libellous since it alleges that we indiscriminately filled up drains [and only the lord in heaven] knows what sort of drainage is left.
Most of the mischief in this matter has been created by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and one can only speculate as to the motives.
Our sugar estates have for many generations operated their sugar cane transportation system by water in punts for which 1/10th of the entire plantations were dug up to make canals for the punts to float, nowhere in this country did the conversion of estate lands to housing areas leave behind the canals for the transport of the punts normally called punt trenches, they were filled in everywhere, because if left unfilled, it would not only be a waste of space, it would breed snakes, insects, mosquitoes, rats, and smell bad since it is not connected to the drainage systems and would be stagnant water. Over the time of my life alone North Ruimveldt, South Ruimveldt, Sophia and all along the East Coast up to UG road, sugar estate lands were converted to housing for the ever expanding Georgetown residents. Eccles was also converted and the navigation trenches filled in, so also was Republic Park, New Providence, Providence and Diamond. Has anyone seen the old estate canals which used to transport the punts in those developments?
I am amazed that the Stabroek News can issue these libellous statements to the detriment of Houston, without finding out from one legitimate source what is going on, and if any drainage canals have in fact been filled. Before the Houston Board files against the newspaper for libel, I would expect that there will be a full retraction and apology for the two offending articles.
Yours faithfully,
Anthony Vieira
Editor-in-Chief’s note: The report in yesterday’s edition on this matter headlined `Overworked GL&SC accepting land plans that grants key infrastructure to private developers’ was based mainly on the findings of the Disciplinary Tribunal of the Board of Land Surveyors. The pages of the newspaper remain open to including the views of the Houston Estate.
