McKenzie reiterates position
Commissioner of the Guyana Lands and Surveys, Doorga Persaud says no record has been found to authenticate claims of a land acquisition at Akawini by Presidential Advisor, Odinga Lumumba, but according to him “we’re still looking”.
The records could be with the Commission, Persaud said, noting the verification process involves a thorough examination of records before the Lands and Surveys Commission was officially formed in 2001. “At one point these records were at another place”, Persaud said, referring to the division within the Ministry of Agriculture which previously had responsibility.
Officers at the Commission did however find records pertaining to Lumumba’s application for and subsequent grant of a lease for state lands at Manarabisi in 1992. The Commission issued a press statement on the Manarabisi acquisition last week after it was approached by Lumumba to substantiate claims that the lands in both locations were awarded to him during the PNC administration.
Persaud declined to comment on whether Lumumba has documents in his possession on the Akawini acquisition which could be of some assistance to the Commission. He said any further queries on the issue should be directed to Lumumba, saying also that the release of any documentary evidence is not something the Commission is willing to do because it could be against protocol. “Further questions on this issue should be directed to Mr. Lumumba because the Commission released all the information in its possession with respect to the Manarabisi lands and at this time we have found no records on Akawini”, Persaud added.
The Commission had reported that its records indicate approximately 10,000 acres of state lands at Manarabisi were applied for by Lumumba’s company and that the application went through the process of land selection. The Commission said the land was subsequently recommended by and later approved by former Minister of Agriculture, Patrick McKenzie on October 5, 1992. An approval letter was later issued to Lumumba by E.A Anderson, Assistant Commissioner of Lands and Surveys, who signed on behalf of the then Commis-sioner, A. K. Datadin, the press release from the Commission had stated.
But McKenzie, who had commented on the Manarabisi lands, said he stands by what was reported in his recent letter to Stabroek News. McKenzie told Stabroek News via email on Monday that he never queried whether the lands at Manarabisi were given to Lumumba, but had laid out the special conditions under which the lands were issued. He said the names of the lessees of those lands were not identified in his letter.
Stabroek News was told that Lumumba was one of the three persons referred to in McKenzie’s letter to the press, to have submitted an application for lands at Manarabisi. Some 40,000 acres were available at Manarabisi and Lumumba had applied for 10,000 acres. McKenzie, in his letter, had mentioned that investors who were interested needed to have the ability to raise large sums of money because of the capital investment required, particularly for drainage and irrigation and other infrastructure at the Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary Development Project which was essentially for small farmers.
“To my knowledge no lessee obtained the required capital for investment prior to the end of 1992 when there was a change in government”, McKenzie wrote. Though McKenzie did not directly address the issue in his correspondence to this newspaper it was understood that a lease was issued to Lumumba during McKenzie’s time to assist in his search for capital; the question still remains as to whether he later met the conditions as laid out by McKenzie before acquisition. If he didn’t the land could have been repossessed by the state without a promise having to be made to Lumumba to provide him with another tract, as was subsequently done, after he agreed to relinquish some of the Manarabisi land.
McKenzie told Stabroek News that the press release from the Lands and Surveys Commission “accurate as it may be is irrelevant to matters pertaining to Akawini” since it only referred to the lands at Manarabisi. The former Minister said he stands by every word in his letter which was sent to the newspaper and subsequently published.
““I am not aware of land in the Akawini that was given to Mr Lumumba, certainly not while I was Minister of Agriculture”, McKenzie wrote. But Lumumba later lashed out in a statement saying his land deal at Akawini was approved during the PNC administration by McKenzie and he declared that the records would show written permission was given.
Lumumba said the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commis-sion has records that would show McNeal Enterprise followed the legal and administrative process from the region to central government, and that former Minister McKenzie gave written permission in his own handwriting, and “sent (a) recommendation from the region to the commission of Lands and Surveys”. “…I am rather surprised at the assumed position of Mr. McKenzie and will forgive him because of his age”, he added.
Questions about Lumumba’s acquisition of lands at Manarabisi and Akawini arose after he said that he had been offered a plot of land on Mandela Avenue in return for land that he had voluntarily given up at Manarabisi following a request by the PPP/C after it entered office in October, 1992.
