Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 24, 2016 News
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
President David Granger ‘righted the wrong’ when he cancelled leases for several acres of land on West Coast Berbice (WCB). Those leases were granted by former President Donald Ramotar.
The President’s move to cancel the leases was announced by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams, at a recent press conference he held at his Carmichael Street Office.
Williams said, “While the resolution of the prerogative writs against the Mahaica/ Mahaicony/ Abary-Agricultural Development Authority (MMA-ADA) was pending on the question whether the MMA-ADA could lawfully take away the Seafield Co-operative Land Society’s lands, former President Ramotar ignored the Order Nisi prohibiting the MMA-ADA from so doing and granted leases to a few non co-op members.”
Williams said that the change in Government brought in new management for the MMA-ADA.
According to Williams, it was the new MMA-ADA that recommended that the “illegality of taking away Co-op lands and giving them to others be corrected by the President who righted the wrong by cancelling those leases.”
Contacted yesterday, Ramotar told Kaieteur News that the lands initially in the Co-op’s possession belonged to the state.
He said that his administration saw that there was an extreme case of landlordism and the Co-op was making a lot of money off the land.
He said that it was because of this he decided that something needed to be done.
Ramotar said that when the lease came to an end, he reallocated the land
to people “who really needed it and could have made better use of it.” The former President said that most of the people who he granted the lease to, utilized the land for agricultural purposes.
Ramotar said that he was not aware of any order by President Granger to cancel the leases. He said that in any case, it is clear to him that the Attorney General does not know all the facts.
“He (Williams) should get the facts before he starts talking about these matters instead of misinforming the public as he usually does.”
Ramotar said that Williams could have easily made contact with the former administration, “as we would have been more than willing to share our knowledge on the issue.”
Further, the former President said that he cannot understand how the APNU+AFC administration can now have a problem with the leasing of land when one of its Members of Parliament was part of the redistribution process.
The former President said, “APNU’s own Parliamentarian, Jennifer Wade, was part of a democratic process when we were doing the interviews for the reallocation of those lands.”
Williams subsequently told Kaieteur News that contrary to Ramotar may think, he is very much aware of the issue. He said that he was the lawyer who represented the Co-op while he was in private practice.
“I fought for the right of the people. They owned the land for over 100 years. Ramotar took the peoples lands and gave it to persons who are not even members of the Co-op. He granted the leases in 2015.”
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