Govt. paid $4.9B to rent properties for 2020, 2021

Aug 06, 2022 News

…$1.8B to be paid out this year so far

By Renay Sambach

Kaieteur News – When it comes to the rental of buildings, consecutive governments continue to pump billions of taxpayers’ dollars often into the hands of private citizens, to rent properties to provide occupancy to State and other related entities.

In just two years, $4,920,023,000 of taxpayers’ dollars was spent to rent properties to house several government agencies and to rent properties across the different regions.

With the use of the Estimates of the Public Sector, Current and Capital Expenditure for 2022, Kaieteur News was able to do a compilation of monies paid for the rental of buildings for the last two years; and the amount that is to be paid this year.

The document separated the rent under agencies and by regional districts.

For 2020, across 19 agencies, the sum of $1,731,539,000 was paid in rent. Notably, the sum includes rent that was paid under the APNU+AFC Coalition and the PPP administration when they assumed office from August 2020. In the said year, the sum of $12,671,000 was paid to rent properties across six regional districts, making $1,744,210,000 the total sum of rent paid in 2020.

Last year, the total sum of $3,175,813,000 was paid in rent; the sum includes rent paid for 12 State agencies and for the rental of properties in seven regional districts.

Recently, this publication had highlighted that the APNU+AFC Coalition government tied Guyana to a 10-year lease to pay $188 million annually to rent prominent Guyanese singer, Eddy Grant’s, Duke Street, Kingston property, to house the United Nations (UN) offices.

Including the $188 million that will be paid to rent the Kingston property – a compilation revealed that the sum of $1,868,238,000 will be paid in rent for this year.

Kaieteur News reported this week that Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) Ganesh Mahipaul said the issue over rental of buildings under the various administrations will continue unless there is a shift in the mentality of the political leadership from having to rent these buildings to owning them.

During February 2020, in the National Assembly, Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, had explained that the monies being spent to rent the property for the UN offices could have constructed a facility on a plot of land that the State owns. Minister Edghill had noted too that the State has the responsibility to select the building in the context of what the State can afford.

However, consecutive governments continue to pump billions into the hands of private citizens.

See tables below on how taxpayers’ money is being spent to rent properties for the State for the period under review: