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James Bond, others placed on bail in land case
– Heath-London out of country, charged in absentia
Charged, James Bond.
Charged, Eddie Doolal.
Kaieteur News – People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) member, James Bond, and others implicated in the prime state land giveaway at Plantation Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara, yesterday made their first court appearance and were placed on bail.
However, Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), Colvin Heath-London, is not in the country, so he was charged in absentia.
The other two defendants are Director of A-Z Pharmaceuticals Medical Supplies and Equipment Inc., Eddie Doolal, and a principal of ARKEN Group Inc., Jermaine Richmond.
Bond, Doolal and Richmond made their first court appearance in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts before Chief Magistrate, Ann McLennan.
Charged in absentia, Colvin Heath-London.
Bond and Heath-London were slapped with three joint charges, while Doolal is implicated in the second joint charge and Richmond is implicated in the third joint charge.
The first charge alleged, that Heath-London and Bond, between August 1, 2017, and November 30, 2020, at Georgetown, conspired together and with others to defraud NICIL and its sole shareholder, the Government of Guyana, of property interest in land, namely the grant of a lease of land known as Plot A17, A18, and A19 Plantation Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara, owned by the said NICIL, without the necessary Board and Cabinet approval to do same and for purposes other than that of NICIL.
Charged, Jermaine Richmond.
The second charge stated, that Heath-London, Bond, and Doolal, between August 1, 2017, and November 30, 2020, at Georgetown, conspired together and with others to defraud NICIL and its sole shareholder, the Government of Guyana, of property interest in land, namely the grant of a lease of land known as Plot A7, A8, and A20 Plantation Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara, owned by the said NICIL without the necessary Board and Cabinet approval to do same and for purposes other than that of NICIL.
The final charge alleged, that Heath-London, Bond, and Richmond, between August 1, 2017, and November 30, 2020, at Georgetown, conspired together and with others to defraud NICIL and its sole shareholder, the Government of Guyana, of property interest in land, namely the grant of a lease of land known as plot A1, A2, A3, and A4 Plantation Peter’s Hall, East Bank, Demerara, owned by the said NICIL, without the necessary Board and Cabinet approval to do same and for purposes other than that of NICIL.
The charges were laid indictably and as such, the defendants were not required to enter a plea after the charges were read to them. Chief Magistrate, McLennan, granted Bond bail in the total sum of $150,000 for the three joint charges, while Richmond and Doolal were both placed on $100,000 bail each. Bond, Doolal and Richmond are expected to make their next court appearance on April 19, 2021.
According to reports, Doolal and Life 1 Pharms Inc.’s Director, Avalon Jagnanadan, both leased acres of prime state land from NICIL, but transferred the state land at a price to Chinese National, Jianfen Yu. However, Jagnanadan has not been charged.
It is further alleged that in another land deal, Richmond, on behalf of a company, also leased acres of land from NICIL. It is alleged that Bond received a payment from Trinidad logistics company, Lennox Petroleum, for the sale of several acres of the land that was leased to Richmond on behalf of the company.
The same company also sold the remaining acres of land to local logistics company, GLASS Holdings Inc.
Kaieteur News had reported that the government of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, which came to office last August after a five-month impasse following the March 2, 2020, elections, had insisted that it found a significant number of irregular land transactions involving state properties, including former sugar lands worth billions of dollars.
A number of companies have already returned lands, which were supposed to be developed.
In these instances, investigators found that NICIL, as the representative of the people of Guyana for the transactions, did not even collect all the money when it transferred lands into the recipients’ names.
The police and its Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) are involved in the investigations.
SOCU’s role may involve investigating whether crimes relating to money laundering were committed. The land transactions, which spans from Wales, Peter’s Hall and Ogle, have seen attention coming down on a number of former ministers within the Coalition Government of David Granger, now in Opposition.
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