SARU sending wrong signals to investors – Jagdeo

Jan 13, 2017 News

Recently the Head of the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU), Dr. Clive Thomas, said that his agency

Dr. Clive Thomas

will be documenting all of the high-rise buildings in Guyana in an effort to know who owns the structures, how they were financed and if the owners are paying any taxes.
However, this move has been criticised by the Leader of the opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, who is of the opinion that it lacks logic and will only serve to drive investors away.
Additionally, Jagdeo made mention of Thomas’ statements that the Central Bank was deficient because it did not look at the flow through of money in the banking system and together with the commercial banks did not do due diligence of customers.
During a press conference at his party’s headquarters, yesterday, Jagdeo said that Thomas should be asked how he has quantified the illegal money in the banking system.
“The reason why I am so upset with this, and the President needs to look at this, that these loose mouthed people are damaging our economy. The business community and ordinary citizens operate on signals. If the entire government speaks as though it hates investment and investors and if you put up a building you will be subjected to a full range of scrutiny by the government, they are not going to invest.”
The former Head of State said that investors will not have confidence in Guyana’s economy and hopes that the President speaks to persons like Dr. Thomas who are damaging investment prospects for the economy.
“So what’s the logic, assuming you have one five-storey building or fifty-one storey buildings? What’s the logic of this? So he is going to map that one five-storey building that you have and subject you to investigation when you have other persons who have fifty properties around the city but they are not tall buildings.”
Jagdeo said that Dr. Thomas is damaging the prospects of Guyana and its people as it relates to the creation of jobs which will generate income. “I do hope that the President looks into this. Sometimes you can get everything right, but if the signals are wrong about your intent, then people act on signals and investors do so as well as ordinary citizens.”

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo

In a recent report, Chief Executive Officer of SARU, Aubrey Heath-Retemyer, said that the department of the Ministry of the Presidency has already created an inventory of over 100 buildings in Guyana. He said that the anti-corruption programme in Guyana will be a comprehensive and far reaching one.
According to Heath-Retemyer, “How do you justify building a complex several stories high and you are only using the ground floor and there is no other activity going on in the upper floors? If you are paying a mortgage, you can’t afford to just use the ground floor of a four or six storey building.”
He said that the agency is not operating in a laid back manner but is actively conducting research so that when it officially becomes an agency, it has the necessary information to begin its work. However, gathering the relevant information has been posing a problem for SARU as Thomas said that places such as the Deeds Registry are unable to supply documentation stating who owns a number of lands or businesses.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News