The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Moravian Church in Guyana has said that the church will not provide documented proof that it is indeed the legal owner of land located in Graham’s Hall, Industry, East Coast Demerara that it is now selling to occupants.
At a meeting held on March 12th, dozens of Graham’s Hall residents were told by the church that they would have to pay up to $400,000 to attain the transports for land that some of them said had been occupied by their family for more than 100 years.
During the meeting, Chairman of the Church’s Board Brinmore Phaul along with another board member and former Lands and Surveys Commissioner TA Earle, informed that occupying land for a prolonged period of time did not translate into ownership.
Although questions remain unanswered as to whom the rightful owners of the land are, and whether or not the church has the right to demand the sums from the residents, the church has for some time been leasing land to the residents of the community for as much as $40,000 annually.
A representative of the church had told Stabroek News that the Moravian Church of Guyana obtained ownership of the land in the 1800s from a group of missionaries, who were the previous owners.
Since this time, he said, the Moravian Church of Guyana has claimed to be the legal owners of the land. He also explained that over the years many persons, most if not all of them Moravian, had moved to the area and squatted. He said that as time progressed, the church began leasing the land to persons who have taken up residence. This, he said, has been the case for several decades.
Nothing was mentioned of any form of documentation showing ownership.
However, some residents claim that the land was given to their foreparents by GuySuCo and should therefore be theirs.
When contacted last week, Phaul told this newspaper that neither he, nor any other member of the church’s administrative body would be pronouncing on any questions challenging the church’s claim to ownership of the land Graham’s Hall.
Stabroek News understands that if the Moravian Church of Guyana is indeed the lawful owners of land at Graham’s Hall, it should be in possession of either a deed or a transport. However this newspaper has been unable to determine which of the two, if any, the church possesses.
In the meantime, despite their obvious opposition to paying for land they already consider to be theirs, most of the residents of Graham’s Hall have resigned themselves to paying the amounts being asked of them.
Phaul said that each lease owner will be required to pay based on the size of their lots. He added that for those who would have been continuously paying their leases, the amount paid thus far would be subtracted from the decided upon amount to determine what the real price would be.
