Land transactions in this country quite often degenerate into contention and confusion. Along the coast the land is generally either state-owned, Neighbourhood Democratic Council reserve, the property of GuySuCo or held by individual villagers. Private companies, such as the more recent real estate operators are issued leases or grants from state land. Establishing ownership of any particular lot, particularly if it is not being worked, often involves time and effort, something which not all authorities are always prepared to invest. Most recently it is the Beterverwagting/Triumph NDC on the East Coast Demerara which has got itself into a tangle.
It is not the first time that land has become an issue there. In 2018 the Council decided to lease a portion of the Company Path to a company so it could erect a vendors’ arcade. This was challenged by the neighbouring NDC, that of Mon Repos/La Reconnaissance, which claimed it owned the land. In that instance the assistance provided by the Guyana Lands & Surveys Commission turned out to be rather less helpful than it could have been.
If this was extremely frustrating for the Council since it had made genuine efforts to establish to whom the land belonged, their role in the latest land dispute is murkier. The Council made an agreement to sell John Fernandes Ltd 143.10 acres of land for $35 million, $20 million of which was to be paid on signing the agreement and the remainder when transport was passed.
Details of the deal only came to light after the document relating to it was leaked, and it was discovered that that nearly 100 Beterverwagting residents owned part of the lands included in the agreement of sale. This inevitably produced protests from the community, while Councillor Duncan raised objections in a meeting. As a consequence, John Fernandes Ltd pulled out of the agreement, its CEO Phillip Fernandes telling this newspaper: “When people objected and started saying we should not be buying the land and it belonged to other people, we said if there are people who made claims and there might be legitimacy to the claims, we don’t want to go against that. So it was safer for us to say, let us take a step back and we can always look elsewhere because it wasn’t an immediate need for us … [T]he last thing we wanted was to be part of something where people felt they were getting a raw deal again.”
Leaving aside the question of how the NDC came to the conclusion it could sell land which apparently it did not own, one might have thought it had been given a respite as a consequence of John Fernandes Ltd deciding not to pursue the deal. But as it turned out this was a premature assumption. Last week the NDC found that another entity was claiming that they had a Deed of Assignment from John Fernandes Ltd and were acting on the sale. This was before the Council had written Fernandes Ltd indicating that they wanted a meeting to discuss the return of the money for the land now it was withdrawing from the agreement. Following the letter from an unknown company, however, they wrote to seek a meeting to clarify what was going on.
The new mystery company with which the NDC had never had dealings let alone an agreement, was Mohammed’s Sons and Daughters Trading (MSDT). The Company Secretary of this firm on 24th May responded to a Council letter dated the 15th of the month directed to Fernandes Ltd CEO Phillip Fernandes, in which she said that “John Fernandes Ltd is in process of signing over all their rights and interest to Mohamed’s Sons and Daughters Trading, Mining, Logging and Construction Inc., by way of Deed of Assignment.” She went on to say, “Soon as the document becomes available, I will make a certified copy available for the Beterverwagting /Triumph NDC and from thereon the company which the agreement is assigned will address the NDC in relation to the matter.” The company received the Deed of Assignment on 13th June.
This is extraordinary. First a letter addressed to one company is answered by a different one, and secondly the NDC is informed by a third party that the Fernandes company has assigned rights it had negotiated with the Council to another business enterprise altogether. JFL apparently does not think it behoves it to inform the NDC that it has assigned its rights. Is one to infer too that it did not bother to tell Mohamed’s that some of the land was privately owned?
Clearly John Fernandes Ltd which has always had a reasonably clean reputation by the business standards of this society, has some serious questions to answer, but this newspaper was unable to contact the CEO after repeated attempts. In any event, so much for his expressed wish to avoid people feeling they were getting “a raw deal.” Both the Council and the community are certainly getting a raw deal if the report on the assignment is accurate.
As for the MSDT company, we reported that its Managing Director is listed as Mohan Mohamed Johnson, and its address as Lot 61 Fourth Street Cummings Lodge. Calls to the mobile number given go to voicemail. Our reporter did visit the address, but it is a dilapidated cottage on land covered with grass, bushes and small trees, and it has no bridge for access. No one lives there, and neighbours said it had been abandoned a long time ago. So what kind of a company is this that John Fernandes Ltd to all appearances has inflicted on the BV NDC?
But there are questions to be raised about the conduct of the NDC itself. Councillor Elton McRae said that a valuation of the land had been done before the agreement with John Fernandes Ltd was signed, which he thought seemed to suggest that they had had plans since last year to dispose of the land. In addition, he said, the Council knew that most of the land was privately owned, since it had been assessed for the purposes of a Caribbean Development Fund rural programme. The survey showed that one part was divided into 290 plots, where only five could be identified as belonging to the Council, although they were accorded a maximum of ten.
“There are no substantial amount of communal or public lands in the backdams,” he said.
He did concede that some people may have defaulted on their taxes, but that was not the case with the majority. But even where defaulters were concerned, as he correctly observed, there had to be a lawful process before their land could be sold.
The whole notion of devolving power to local communities is defeated if the executives of a local authority behave with the same high-handedness as the central government, taking decisions without reference to the community or even their own councillors. If indeed it is the case that the BV Council already knew that some of the land they wanted to sell was privately owned, what on earth were they thinking? All that would have happened if the initial deal had gone ahead would have been possibly years of wrangling in the courts. As it is, they may have to resort to the courts if indeed the Fernandes company has assigned the rights agreed with the NDC to MSDT.
Autocratic behaviour is no more palatable at the local level than it is at the national one. In small communities there is a unique opportunity for consultation and compromise without the retreat into fixed group categories. Local executives may have energy and be convinced they know how to develop their area, but unless they have the community on board they will fail. And for its part the community needs to take an active interest in what their local representatives are doing so they are held accountable in matters like land sales.
