10,000 acres lands at MMA-ADA…I did not benefit from any Duty Free Concessions - Chairman

10,000 acres lands at MMA-ADA…I did not benefit from any Duty Free Concessions – Chairman

Jan 01, 2020 News

Chairman of the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary Agricultural Development Authority (MMA/ADA), Kelvin Saul, has said that he has not benefitted from any duty free or other tax concessions.
Saul was responding earlier this week on a matter which he insisted is now closed.

MMA-ADA Chairman, Kelvin Saul

A business which he is associated with has over 10,000 acres in the MMA-ADA area.
The lands were in the name of Mc Agriculture Trading and Investment Services (MATIS).
The issue of the lands came up as MATIS approval for the lands to be converted from forest concessions to agriculture lands occurred earlier this year when Saul was sitting as chairman.
In a statement over the weekend, Saul made it clear that he recused himself when the MMA-ADA board approved the transaction around August.
Earlier this week, Kaieteur News again spoke to Saul about a few grey areas contained in a statement over the weekend where he clarified the matter. He said that he did not benefit from any duty free concessions or tax breaks. He said, of course, that it is an area he will be willing to explore. He said it is a major investment in which he is digging into his and his partners’ pockets.
He has spent millions of dollars to survey and develop the lands, which are located next door to the St. Cuthbert’s Mission, located up the Mahaica River. The official became Chairman of that authority earlier last year.
According to documents of the transaction acquired by Kaieteur News, MATIS is a private business owned by Kelvin Saul, Colin Prescod, Colin Clyde Prescod, Jason Martin and Slater Saul.
The actual lease of lands to MATIS for agricultural purposes was finally signed on December 3, last, by Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder, on behalf of the President of Guyana.
Before that, in 2015, after years of preparation, Kelvin Saul and his partner, Colin Prescod received permission from the Guyana Forestry Commission for logging on the same lands.
The Chairman had denied it was a conflict of interest situation as he was just converting lands he and his partners had even before he had become Chairman.
According to Saul, at the time of the decision by MMA-ADA in 2016 to go ahead and approve the forest lands for agricultural purposes, he was not the chairman. He was a board member. He recused himself from the deliberations of the transactions, he said.
The Opposition made it clear that there appears to be elements of a conflict of interest scenario.
The land is said to be located on either side of Captain Creek in Region Five.
Saul, in his statement, had insisted that this land was essentially forest land in the hinterland and intermediate savannahs.
He said that MATIS focused on husbandry and harvesting of forestry products with charcoal production through systematic and sustained tree felling and land clearing.
“The subsequent MATIS application to the MMA which is the current excuse for controversy was merely for a conversion of the use of the said land from forestry to agricultural purposes.
The indecent haste of these PPP/C persons in making baseless allegations against MATIS; impugning my integrity as an official is, sad to say, a basic modus operandi of some of the activists of this party.”

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