Lands in Ruimveldt, Eccles and Coldingen to be repossessed

May 20, 2008 News

…Government already begun legal actions

Government is moving to repossess all lands that were leased to investors and not developed in Ruimveldt, Eccles and Coldingen.
Yesterday, Head of the Privatization Unit, Winston Brassington, announced that once investors have not commenced any work in the areas or owe rent on those leased lands, the lands will be reclaimed.
Speaking to the media during a press conference, Brassington said that the Privatization Unit has referred to the lawyers all the occupants who have leased lands and who are not paying rent.
“They have been issued with notices since last year, and during this year we want to seek repossession of all these properties.”
In other cases, he said, some of the occupants do not have any agreements with the Unit. “We are moving for repossession because they have had leases issued since the 1960s, in some cases at ‘pepper corn rent’ of $1,000 per year, and those amounts were never indexed or adjusted,” Brassington said.
According to him, the Unit had approached some of the investors whose leases are up and attempted to enter into a current lease at ‘reasonably current rate’ just for the land, not for the buildings, but they have refused.
“We have gone to the Chief Valuation Officer and said, ‘Please value what the land is’, and we put it to the tenants…we had meetings with them, even at the level of Office of the President; a slight discount was offered, and still they refused to basically sign up a lease or buy the place,” Brassington said.
In Eccles and Coldingen, the rates for rent are much lower than Sanata Textiles, which was recently leased for $50M per annum. At the time when lands in Eccles and Coldingen were rented, he added, the focus was on creating employment and investment.
“In those areas, too, we have sent a number of matters to our lawyers for legal actions. We have a number of legal actions on Eccles, where lessees have failed to invest and do what they committed to do.”
There are 84 lots in Eccles, he noted, and there are quite a few that currently have letters from the lawyers seeking to terminate, or legal action going on to recover the premises.
At Eccles Industrial Estate lands were leased for $1 per square foot, while the same is applicable at the Coldingen Industrial Estate, which consists of 38 plots. Among the lands that Government will be seeking to repossess is the GNEC facilities at Lombard Street, which were leased to GNIC at $70M per annum, but no rent has been paid for some time now.
Another area that was leased is the old glassworks facility that was rented to Howard Bulkhan at $5.3 M per annum. This was rented since the mid-1990s, when GGWL was dissolved.
The former GRDB wharf has been leased to BK International at $10M per annum.

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Lands in Ruimveldt, Eccles and Coldingen to be repossessed

…Government already begun legal actions

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Lands in Ruimveldt, Eccles and Coldingen to be repossessed

…Government already begun legal actions

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