The National Sports Commission (NSC) upon the direction of the Government of Guyana has entered into an agreement of sale for a parcel of land situated at Mandela Avenue vested in the National Sports Commission to Cevons Waste Management Inc.
A statement on the Facebook page of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport said that the agreement was entered into yesterday afternoon in the boardroom of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, in the presence of the Minister, Charles S. Ramson MP, the Permanent Secretary, Melissa Tucker, Commissioners of the National Sports Commission (Dellon Davidson, Philip Fernandes, Cristy Campbell, Cheteram Ramdial, Kashif Muhammed), the Director of Sports, Steve Ninvalle, and Morse Archer, Chief Executive Officer of Cevons Waste Management Inc.
The statement said that the land in question was “previously sold unlawfully by the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC)”.
The terms of the transaction yesterday were not disclosed.
Earlier this year, the government had filed a lawsuit against Cevons and others over their transactions with the GL&SC. The government later relented and said that it would strike on out-of-court deal over what it had said was the paltry sums charged by the GL&SC in the purported sales. It would appear that under yesterday’s deal Cevons – which already has a building on the land – would have paid a sum above what it originally paid to the GL&SC.
In May of this year, the former Head of the GL&SC, Trevor Benn was charged over the Cevons transaction which states that between August 31, 2018 and October 1, 2018 at the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission, Georgetown, while being a Public Officer, he misconducted himself by executing a sale of a parcel of land held under Transport No. 336 of 1925 — that portion known as Area C being portion of Track B Plantation Le Repentir, Georgetown. It contained an area of 1.356 acres — and he caused Cevons Waste Management Inc to pay the sum of $80,000,000 to the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission for the said parcel of land, knowing that at the time he did not have the authority to sell the said land, the said willful misconduct amounting to breach of public trust, without any excuse or reasonable justification”.
