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NICIL gives away Turkeyen land to China Rail
…AFC taking issue to Parliament-Nagamootoo
Winston Brassington, Head of NICIL
The recent gifting of a one-acre plot of Turkeyen land by NICIL to China Rail has caused the political opposition to issue a call for this “questionable” action to come under serious Parliamentary interrogation.
Vice Chairman of the Alliance For Change, Moses Nagamootoo, said that the land should not have been gifted to China Rail and should have served instead as land to support a more important future project.
China Railway was considered a key construction partner during discussions last year on the controversial Amaila Falls Hydro Project.
The Alliance for Change (AFC) learnt about this land deal during an official check for the assent of the amended 2014 Appropriation Bill by President Donald Ramotar in the Official Gazette. Instead, the opposition party discovered the “suspicious land deal.”
During a press conference, AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan said, “We took a look at the Official Gazette and we found a double transfer of lands at Turkeyen from the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission to the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) which is headed by Winston Brassington.”
This publication checked the latest publication of the Official Gazette and it stated that a portion of one acre of land of Plantation Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara as shown on a plan by D. Ramkarran, a sworn land surveyor dated June 18, 2013 and signed by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh on April 4, was transferred to NICIL.
The Member of Parliament added, “NICIL then transferred to China Railway Guyana Incorporated, a piece of land as the donor and the donee. There was no cost attached to the land transfer.”
The AFC Leader stressed that he would like the government to be transparent about this questionable transaction and explain why Lands and Surveys, transferred the land to NICIL and why it was not sold to the engineering group.
Also supporting the Leader’s position was the party’s Vice Chairman. In a telephone interview yesterday, Nagamootoo expressed, “Firstly, I believe that all information about NICIL should be made public. This is what the opposition has been asking for some time. The money NICIL accumulates is supposed to be transferred to the Consolidated Fund. The fact that we are unaware of all the assets under the company leaves a lot of questions unanswered.”
The attorney-at-law added, “We need to be made aware of the assets they have so that we can be able to calculate the proceeds made and know what belongs in the Consolidated Fund. Why was this land gifted to China Rail? It is unacceptable. State lands ought to be gifted to the new generation to support the future. This is non renewable resources we are dealing with and we have to be more careful with this gifting arrangement that NICIL is getting involved in.”
“This issue has to come under parliamentary investigation. I rather suspect that this was probably part of some contractual agreement between Government and China Rail and we need to find the truth. We cannot be gifting state lands like this. It is absolutely intolerable behavior on the part of NICIL.”
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