The probe into how land was allocated at ‘Pradoville 2’ to PPP/C government officials, including current Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, and the cases that were subsequently filed have all been terminated and the office which was pursuing the matter under the former APNU+AFC administration has been disbanded, according to Attorney General Anil Nandlall.
How the land on the East Coast of Demerara was transformed into a upscale housing area that required the removal of a telecommunications tower had dogged former PPP/C administrations for years and culminated in an intense probe under the Granger-led administration that saw criminal charges being brought and civil cases filed by the now disbanded State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA).
“The staff were terminated, the lease surrendered, the unit dismantled so there is no body called SARA in existence,” Nandall told the Sunday Stabroek when asked for an update.
“After four years, they have nothing to show for it,” he added
The Attorney General contended that the agency’s formation and the way it conducted its duties were bungled and said that government believes it served no purpose in the four years it operated.
“It’s Director and De-puty Director were never appointed according to the SARA Act. That Act, prescribed that these two persons be appointed by the National Assembly and this was never done. Yet there were these two persons employed and drawing remuneration for a number of years. Those who were administering and managing the agency never understood the legal nature of the agency. The Director of the agency, in accordance with the Act, were the Corporate Sole of the agency and not the agency itself,” he posited.
“For example, legal proceedings were required to be instituted in the name of the Director and not the Agency. All the proceedings that were filed by SARA were filed in the name of the agency and not in the name of the Director. And those that attracted a ruling from the court. And when I say court, I mean [from] different judges on the High Court. All [the cases] were dismissed on the ground that they were wrongly instituted; that is to say they were instituted by the agency and not the Director,” he added.
Following a number of audits and investigations, in February of 2019, SARA filed civil proceedings against ex-President Jagdeo and six other persons who purchased land at the controversial ‘Pradoville 2’ below market prices. Then Director of the agency Professor Clive Thomas had said that that more cases to recover “stolen” state assets would have been filed before that year ended.
A total of eight cases were filed in relation to persons who were allegedly in possession of state assets. Aside from Jagdeo, the other defendants were former Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, former Housing Minister Shaik Baksh, Lisaveta Ramotar, who is the daughter of former president Donald Ramotar, businessman Ramesh Dookhoo, former Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) president Professor Compton Bourne, and Florrie Loretta Ramnauth.
It was the contents of a Ministry of the Presidency (MoTP)-commissioned audit that ignited the civil recovery investigation regarding the Pradoville 2 lands, Thomas had inform-ed as he said that SARA believed that they were controversially obtained in 2010 by top officials of the then PPP/C administration.
Larger probe
After taking office in 2015 with David Granger as its President, the APNU+AFC government launched a special investigation of the ‘Pradoville 2’ housing development, which was part of a larger probe of the financial operations of the Central Housing and Planning Authority. It was in that audit by Ram and McRae that it was stated that the allocation of the land was a clandestine arrangement that was handled personally by then PPP/C Housing Minister and now President Irfaan Ali. It was concluded that a criminal case for misfeasance could be made against the PPP/C Cabinet members who benefitted.
“Our examination leads to the conclusion that the project was done outside of the established procedures and that Minister [Ali] piloted every aspect of the transaction without recourse to the Authority. While the minister has considerable powers under the Housing Act, his role in the issue of titles was well outside of his functions and powers,” the final report said.
The forensic audit found that awardees grossly underpaid for the lots by a total of nearly $250 million, while the state-owned National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), the National Communications Network and the Guyana Power and Light Inc. were never reimbursed for millions spent to execute preparatory works on the housing scheme. Accord-ing to SARA, NICIL/ Privatisation Unit spent between $71.4 million and $85.1 million on development works in the scheme.
The forensic audit, which was completed in the latter part of 2015, found that lots of varying sizes were allocated to six Cabinet members – Jagdeo, then Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon and then ministers Priya Manickchand, Dr Jennifer Westford, Robert Persaud and Rohee – along with other persons with connections to the then government. Among the other beneficiaries are Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Ali-Hack and former Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force, Gary Best.
On March 10th of 2017, Jagdeo, Luncheon, Persaud, Ramotar, Dookhoo and Dr Ghansham Singh, who were also beneficiaries of house lots in the scheme, were all arrested and questioned before being released without charge. Marcia Nadir-Sharma, former Deputy Director of state holding company, NICIL was also questioned on that day.
The following day, seven others—former prime minister Samuel Hinds, Ali, Rohee, Manickchand, former Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Water Incorporated Baksh, former labour minister Nanda Gopaul and former public service minister Westford—were questioned by SOCU. Former presidential press officer Kwame McCoy, the former head of the Office for Climate Change Andrew Bishop, Ali-Hack and her husband, Moeen ul-Hack, and Best were also questioned.
Thomas had explained to this newspaper that the filing of the cases came after the closure of an initial window for out-of-court settlements came to an end. The law required the agency to negotiate settlements if possible and it was in this regard that the then Guyana Police Force’s legal adviser, retired judge Claudette Singh, recommended that this option be explored. The window for settlements closed at the end of 2018.
The SARA Director had said that with the ‘Pradoville 2’ matter, the agency took a decision to categorise the cases. The persons named in the cases filed fell into the category of those who still remained in possession of the plots allocated to them, he said. He added the other categories comprised others who were believed to be the “intellectual authors” of the conspiracy to create unlawful conduct, and those who had broken the law further by reselling the land allocated to them.
According to Thomas, in the cases where settlements were reached, the sums were in excess of what the ‘Pradoville 2’ forensic audit had estimated should be the claim made against those beneficiaries. “In fact what we have tried to do is to establish a fair value for what we think the assets are worth in terms of being lost to Guyana,” he added.
The findings of the investigation were later referred to SOCU for a criminal probe to be launched.
Ali was slapped with 19 charges in 2018 in connection with the sale of the lands as he was then the Minister of Housing. The cases against him were dropped after he became President in August last year on the grounds that he could not be prosecuted while in office.
Article 182(2) of the constitution states, “Whilst any person holds or performs the functions of the office of President no criminal proceedings shall be instituted or continued against him or her in respect of anything done or omitted to be done by him or her in his or her private capacity and no civil proceedings shall be instituted or continued in respect of which relief is claimed against him or her or anything done or omitted to be done in his or her private capacity.”
According to Nandlall, all other pending matters “suffered the same fate or they were withdrawn to save costs because they would have suffered the same fate”.
Asked what happens now, he replied, “government will have to decide on the way forward” adding that he believes that the agency was “a humungous waste of resources”. “The rental for the building alone was in excess of $2 million a month…,” he said.
