HOW MUCH LAND SHOULD ONE MAN OWN?

Jan 25, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Mr. Glenn Lall, the publisher of this newspaper, believes that he could have got more money for the sale of prime real estate that the government disposed of last year on the open market than the price eventually paid for the said land.
Last year the government sold just over one hundred acres via public tender and got what it believed was a premium price of $600M. However, Lall believes that if that same land was divided up into quarter acre plots and sold individually, not only would have more than four hundred Guyanese, rather than one, benefited directly from that divestment but the amount of money that could have been raised would have been four times what was paid.
You have to listen to Glenn Lall when he speaks business, because he knows these things, and what he is saying makes sense. If instead of selling the land to one individual, the government had simply sold plots, it could have raised substantially more, considering the price that is now being demanded for premium lots in Guyana. Lall believes that the government suffered a major loss in that deal in that it could have raked in more money than it did than simply selling the lands to one individual.
There have been other divestments of state property that have been controversial, not the least of which was the decision to enter into an agreement for that massive piece of real estate which houses the Sanata Textile Complex.
That controversy is well known but just for the record it involved one thing being advertised and then an agreement being signed for something other than what was originally advertised. The public was eventually informed that the facility has been leased to a company and that there was interestingly an option by that company to buy after two years.
This clause effectively disqualified persons who may have been interested in buying the entire facility since once the company opted to exercise it contractual obligation, the property could no longer be offered for sale through a new process of competitive bidding.
But at what price was that massive piece of real estate, originally developed by the Forbes Burnham administration, sold. What was the market valuation and what was it sold for and why in the first place was the entire property not placed on the bidding block?
There have been other highly controversial divestments and sale of lands to individuals. We have even had cases where members of the ruling elite have been sold lands and property without any tendering process.
It is useless asking for the government to reexamine these sales and divestments. It makes no sense. The government will not bother to revisit these things. In fact, even trying to have them provide details of these deals is like trying to wring water out of steel.
But even if the government is intractable when it comes to these deals made under its hand, the opposition in Guyana needs to at least, say something, more so in an election year when many other deals are likely to be made.
It was the PNCR regime that established the Sanata Complex and at least it owes it to its supporters to indicate whether it would, if elected, be willing to reexamine and if possible recall some of these deals made under the PPP administration.
It may well feel that it may have no legal choice but to accept these sales, but it should be reminded that this was not the position that was taken by the PPP when it got into office in 1992.
That party made it clear that it would renegotiate some of the deals made by the PNCR and in fact in relation to the allocation of thousands of acres of land in West Coast Berbice to one investor, the PPP was able to come to an agreement whereby the eventual acreage to that investor was reduced with the reclaimed part being distributed to hundreds of small farmers.
Just before the 2001 elections, Desmond Hoyte made it clear that he would not recognise an agreement entered into between the government and a foreign company for the divestment of the electricity sector.
This led to all manner of criticisms against him, including charges of being anti-investor, but in the end he was proven correct because the company eventually reverted to local management.
If the present trend of land and property allocation continues, then within the next few years, a small number of individuals are virtually going to own most of Guyana. And this is not good for a country in which there is still a great deal of poverty and in which there are wide differences in the distribution of income.
Instead, as was the case, when the PPP took over, instead of five per cent of the population owning 70 per cent of the land, we could well end up with a situation where five individuals own the whole of Guyana.

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