The two brothers who were given just over a week to vacate a plot of land in Industrial Estate, Ruimveldt that they have occupied for the last twenty-nine years say that they have been instructed by the owners of the property not to move.
The members of the Gibbs family are acting on advice they have received from their lawyer Randolph Eleazar who told them that the land still belongs to them legally. When the lawyer was contacted by this newspaper, he said that there were no grounds for the land to be taken from the family. He suggested that if necessary he would take the matter to the court but at present he saw no reason to do this.
About two weeks ago, two representatives from the National Industrial & Commercial Investment Limited (NICIL) visited the Ruimveldt plot where Keith and Glen Grant resided and told them that the land had been acquired by the government by virtue of the $12M in unpaid taxes. The land has since been advertised by NICIL for sale. The brothers were further told that they had up to last Sunday to remove from the property since the land was about to be sold.
Last week when Stabroek News contacted NICIL, it was informed that the land is still for sale. An official told this newspaper that as far as the company is concerned there is no confusion over the land since it is the property of the government.
When this newspaper spoke to Glen Grant on Monday, he said that a representative from the company had visited them and urged them to move, since their relocation was inevitable.
When the relatives of the now deceased Clarence Gibbs (the original owner of the property) were reached for comment, they said that no one had approached them about buying the land. Joe Gibbs, however, said that the family was not ready to sell the land and they still had plans of restarting their tanning operations there soon.
Meanwhile, Joe Gibbs said that the family had paid the municipality some of the taxes that were in arrears but it was no where near $12M. He, however, declined to say exactly how much was owed.
The land is said to have been given to Clarence Grant by the late President Forbes Burnham in 1979. Gibbs, who managed the company C&M & Sons, set up a tannery on the premises. The Grant brothers, who are family friends of the Gibbs, used to work at the tannery and subsequently chose to live there as caretakers of the property. Even after the production ceased, the brothers still remained on the property with the family’s permission.
