Businessman and former Guyana Lands and Surveys (GL&SC ) Board member Wilfred Brandford says that the $13.5M he paid for lands at the entrance to South Ruimveldt that the government wants returned was too high a figure since he has spent tens of millions developing it over a 17-year period.
He feels that the current bid by the government to recover the spot is targeted at a black businessman which it knows has been “fighting for the spot” since prior to 2015 and which the PPP/C at one time had supported.
“When one will leave out the 17 years I spent and the millions upon millions and millions to develop that spot, the fact that I had at one time PPP/C support and that I was one of the first to be there, to single me out? You must have” an agenda, Brandford said when contacted by Stabroek News yesterday.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall in a letter to Brandford pointed to the sale of state lands by the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC), which he noted was in itself out of the legal portfolio of former GL&SC Head Trevor Benn.
Brandford, according to Nandlall’s letter, paid for the lands 20 days after the 2020 General Elections on 23rd March 2020. He would receive the title, 2020/1111, less than one month after on 15th April 2020.
Nandlall told Brandford that the $13.5 million paid for the 0.710 and 0.887 acres were significantly lower than others sold to other applicants, with one person paying some $150M for a similar size in a location not far away.
”A review of this transaction and similar such transactions reveal that similar sized parcels of land in that very vicinity were sold by the Government of Guyana for as much as one hundred and fifty million (150,000000) more than 10 times the price you paid,” the letter stated.
“This was a fact within the peculiar knowledge or ought to have been within the peculiar knowledge of both you and then Commissioner as both of you served on the Board of the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission,”
Nandlall told Brandford that as a former member of the Board of the GL&SC when former President David Granger granted certain powers to Benn, he should have known that Benn was not given powers to sell state lands.
“Moreover, as a former member of the Guyana Lands and Surveys Com-mission Board, you were also well aware at the time you entered into the aforesaid agreement that by the Delegation of Functions Order No.9 of 2016, His Excellency President David Granger did not confer a power on the Commissioner to sell state lands. That power remained vested in the President. Therefore the Title issued to you is contrary to the provisions of the State Lands Act and is therefore null, void and of no effect,” the letter stated.
Brandford was told that while he was not entitled to recover his monies, government was willing to issue him with a substantial refund if he chose to not go through with looming litigation.
And if he refused, the Attorney General said that “civil proceedings will be instituted against you for compensation, cancellation of the Certificate of Title and for possession of the land”.
Additionally, “the documents will be transmitted to the Guyana Police Force for the commencement of criminal investigations.”
Brandford was asked about his next move and he said that he will “take things one day at a time” believing that “everything has a way of sorting itself out”. However he was quick to point out that he has always, as a businessman, had legal representation on retainer.
He said that the public should ask why after him being there for nearly two decades that he was not forced out.
“They (the PPP/C) supported my fight and it is why I am still there. I [had] approached people from the PPP. The lands there were filled in and one of the developers lost a bulldozer because it was sucked in. And by the time they got it out, it was too costly to repair. Do you know how much I spent on that land? he questioned.
“I was there before Estwick Northe, there before Morse Archer there before…all those people. Check with other people before you come to me because I have facts and documents. So it is not that like last year I applied for this land and got through. I have been fighting for this thing for years and years. Last year or when the government changed wasn’t when I was interested. I was interested all the time. Everybody there so not just only me. Everybody wants to make a living,” he emphasized.
And asked about his role on the board and if he had a friendship with the former GL&SC Commission-er, Brandford replied, “If I was friends with Benn I would have gotten it long time ago and not now. Don’t you think? I am businessman and I support everybody. I have friends in both parties and I support them all because none of them can dare tell me about the friends on the other side and they know that…,” he added.
He said that whichever government is in power he still has to fend for himself and sustain his business like most in the country and doesn’t have time with politics. As such he will continue to do all he can to safeguard his assets.
And given that he doesn’t foresee returning the lands to the state, Brandford said that, “When it comes a case for the lawyer, we deal with that.”
