New GRA HQ for Ogle - Jagdeo defends giving Pattensen land to hotel developer

New GRA HQ for Ogle – Jagdeo defends giving Pattensen land to hotel developer

Jun 16, 2022 News

The land at Plantation Pattensen, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara which was allotted to GRA to build its permanent headquarters.

Kaieteur News – Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo has come out in defence of Government’s decision to transfer a plot of prime land that was allocated for the construction of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA)’s Headquarters to Surinamese-based company Pasha Global to build a hotel here.

GRA Commissioner General, Godfrey Statia

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo

Last week, it was revealed that the land at Plantation Pattensen, Liliendaal East Coast Demerara allotted to GRA to build its permanent headquarters had been taken back and given to Pasha Global.
While details surrounding the transaction have been sketchy, Jagdeo sought to address the questions surrounding the issue during a press conference on Wednesday. He said: “often, we see a lot of issues for example the GRA matter has been made into a front page story about rental. [Opposition leader Aubrey] Norton said that Government is renting to cronies. Since, we got back to office we cut back on rent and I pointed this out while in opposition that rentals under the APNU government grew by $2B and you didn’t need to look very far to find out why…”According to Vice President, GRA has not been left out of Government’s land allocation plans; it is just more profitable for investors to have some prime lands. He explained: “we need to bring the hotels closer to the city…We just decided that there will be three international hotels that will employ about 1500 to 3000 Guyanese there… The GRA building can go little further on the Coast so that is the idea. It’s not to take away the lands. Government services need to be accessible but we should not occupy all prime lands. We need rooms to host a proper convention. We don’t have enough accommodation for CPL.We need about 12 hotels and so that is not an attempt to deprive GRA.”
Further in the planning process, the Vice President said that the Government is now building infrastructures which will see 12 lanes of traffic coming into the city. “We said to ensure that the people of Guyana all have easy access to the GRA that is along the four lane road which we just started that is where the new GRA headquarters will go at Ogle,” he said.
Jagdeo told the media too that the decision to allow GRA to rent the Camp Street Building from the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) is beneficial for the State entity in the long run. “The rental goes to NIS because the building is owned by them and you know that we now have to fix the NIS because the contributions can’t sustain the benefits and that’s why in the future we will need to make a big injection, “he said.
Back in 2017, GRA had secured a 50-year lease for the controversial investment site, to build its headquarters. The land located at Plantation Pattensen, Liliendaal, ECD which was reportedly taken away from GRA, was originally intended for the construction of a multi-million dollar investment, sporting a luxury hotel and several other facilities.
The venture fell through when the overseas investor breached its agreement with a local businessman. Back then, GRA Commissioner General, Godfrey Statia had told members of the media that the building which currently houses the GRA headquarters and almost 900 employees is no longer sufficient. Earlier this year, GRA was in the process of inviting bids to commence construction of the building but before the revenue authority could have gone through with it, it was revealed that the land was transferred back to a hotel dealer.