Head of the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU) Dr Clive Thomas said that the lease by which Red House was let to a company linked to the former PPP administration has to be re-valuated as market principles must determine the price or lease of public property.
In a recent interview with the Stabroek News Thomas said, “Once you have in a marketplace market principles governing the allocation of resources and you can establish that resources were allocated way below the market price then you establish a moral and a legal case to make it an unlawful transaction.”
He said that the state would have to make it pellucid that the establishment of higher moral and legal standards would need to be adhered to and if that meant changing the laws then so be it.
He observed that “they can take cases like that [Red House] in an American court and consider it illegal on the grounds that no prudent or rational relationship would allow you to dispose of assets that cheaply.”
The economist stated that reducing the price paid on public assets would obviously be to the benefit of a select few which meant that it was not to the benefit of the state, and as such this in itself would raise the question of the legality behind such deals.
Thomas had told Stabroek News that while the investigation into the controversial lease began at the SARU head office, the unit is divided into four parts. He noted that the buildings sub-unit of SARU was reviewing the contract whereby the PPP/C administration granted the Cheddi Jagan Research Inc, a private company, a 99-year lease on Red House at a rate of $1,000 per month.
The head of SARU said that government would now have to make moves to challenge the lease.
Minister of State Joseph Harmon stated last week that government is prepared to take legal action to ensure the lease on Red House is rescinded.
Harmon told Stabroek News that Attorney-General Basil Williams has been told that “he is to examine each and every way in which the lease can be terminated and that the Red House be returned to the people of this country out of the hands of a company to which it was, in our view, quite unreasonably transferred.”
Harmon during the budget debates last month revealed that although the building was leased to the private company, the state continued to pay the salaries of the staff.
“I know that he has asked for additional documentation and he has been given [it] but the clear direction by the president is that he is to find ways of bringing that unreasonable… situation to an end, even if it means taking legal action,” he said of the Attorney General’s involvement in the matter.
Stabroek News had spoken briefly with the former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall last month on the terms and conditions of the lease, but he had stated that the deal was done prior to his term in office.
The lease agreement was finalised some time in 2012, after the then government had spent millions to renovate Red House.
Earlier this month, Ramotar told another section of the media that he saw nothing wrong with the deal or government paying the staff at the location even though the property had been leased.
“Considering that this building was completely refurbished at enormous cost to the state, the shock was even greater to learn that the property was leased since 2012 to this company for a nominal sum of $1,000 per month for a period of 99 years. To add salt to injury, the staff of the centre continued to be paid by the treasury,” former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran wrote in his Stabroek News column on accountability.
He called for the deal to be rescinded calling the “abuse/misuse of public resources…an act of corruption.”
The one-time home of the late president Cheddi Jagan was leased to the Cheddi Jagan Research Inc, whose executives are listed as former president Donald Ramotar, Geoffrey Da Silva, Nadira Jagan-Brancier, James Rose, Michael Khan, Kellawan Lall, Mohammed Sattaur and Hydar Ally.
