Government says that it has never leased or sold to anyone or any company one million acres of land in the Rupununi, Region Nine or any part of Guyana “and has no intention of doing so”.
A press release from the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest) yesterday referred to a report regarding a claim by a Barbadian businessman that he owned one million hectares of land in Lethem.
The release went on to say, “the government of Guyana would like to make it explicitly clear to the general public that it has never leased or sold to any person or company one million acres of land in Rupununi, Region 9 or any part of Guyana and has no intention of doing so”.
An article in the Trinidad Guardian and reprinted in this newspaper said that Barbadian billionaire Kyffin Simpson, the chairman of Interamericana Trading Corporation, the Simpson Group of Companies and the SOL Group, told a news conference in Boa Vista, Brazil, that he owned one million hectares of arable land in (the Lethem area) and he wanted to purchase an equal amount of arable land in Bon Fim, Brazil.
Simpson was part of an international team of investors who visited Boa Vista recently and who were reported to be interested in acquiring land and looking at the possibility of linking up with business partners for agricultural projects on both sides of the Brazil/Guyana border.
