Mr. Jagdeo has constitutional immunities from criminal prosecution

Mar 12, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The provision of subsidized housing has always been a fundamental priority of successive People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Governments since 1953. In the 50s and 60s, it was the PPP which played an instrumental role in moving thousands from the plantations into newly established housing schemes throughout the coastland after successful negotiations with the sugar estates to assist in providing titled house-lots at nominal value. In Georgetown, it was the PPP that built housing schemes in the Ruimveldt area and in Campbellville at hugely subsidized costs to the eventual home owners.
From 1992 to 2015, perhaps the greatest legacy of successive PPP Governments was its housing drive designed to provide affordable house-lots, initially, and then homes to the people of this country who did not have a home and most of whom, who never dreamt of owning one. Guyanese from every walk of life and from every ethnic group, right across the coastland and in Regions nine (9) and ten (10) benefitted from this programme. Conservatively, over one hundred and twenty thousand (120,000) house-lots are estimated to have been distributed. A house-lot in an area where roads, drainage and other infrastructural facilities were built and water and electricity installed, was sold for as low as fifty thousand dollars ($50,000). These areas were converted from cane fields, rice fields, swamps, cow pastures and forest. Hundreds of millions were expended in clearing, filling and building up these lands to prepare them for eventual allocation as house-lots. Anyone who believes that fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) was the market value of those lands is insane.
As the economy grew the housing drive was adjusted to suit the affordability and demands of a more financially affluent population. Naturally, sizes of house lots were eventually increased and locations closer to the urban centers, attracted higher value for lots distributed by the Government. With the passage of time, other dimensions were added to the housing programme, such as, the sale of large plots of land to private developers to build housing schemes and gated communities for resale to individuals. Despite its dynamism, one factor remained constant in the Government housing programme: every single plot of land sold, was done so below market value. The PPP Government’s housing programme is the envy of many Caribbean leaders. Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonzalves, have publicly commended it for emulation in other Caribbean territories.
Pradoville 2 was no different. It was part of this housing drive. The price at which lots at Pradoville 2 were sold was identical to the price which was generated for a plot of land located at Liliendaal, sold to a private developer through a public bidding process. Liliendaal is approximately two miles closer to Georgetown, than Pradoville 2. Yet, Pradoville 2 housing project was converted into a huge political scandal by politicians, which was fueled by an abetting media. The scandal drew its sensation from the fact that Former President, Bharrat Jagdeo and many Ministers of the PPP Government and top State Officials were allocated plots of land in the scheme. When the APNU+AFC assumed Government, the project became the subject of a forensic audit. From May 2015, to current, this scheme has been the subject of reckless news reports containing all manner of baseless and scandalous information on an almost daily basis in the press.
This week, it became the subject of criminal investigations. A former president who has constitutional immunities from the criminal legal process during the tenure of his presidency, was arrested in relation to acts done while those immunities were in force. This arrest is manifestly unlawful. He was detained for questioning. The detention is equally unlawful. Several other Former Ministers of the PPP Government and current Members of Parliament were also arrested and detained. They were told that the reason for their arrest and detention was questioning in relation to ‘misappropriation of state funds and conspiracy to defraud the state of revenue, to wit: Pradoville 2.’
This is unparalleled ignorance. No matter how they are twisted and manipulated, the facts surrounding the purchase of house-lots from the Government of Guyana at Pradoville 2 by those who did so, can never yield any causal nexus to the offences which the officers claim they were investigating. Hence I am of the firm view that every single arrest was unlawful and the consequent detention amounted to false imprisonment and the deprivation of those people’s liberty, as guaranteed to them as a fundamental right and freedom by the Constitution of Guyana. In the context of the Government’s housing policy, the fact that these lands were sold and bought below the market value, can never lend itself to the establishment of criminal liability.
Anil Nandlall

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