John Fernandes Limited (JFL) has pulled out of an agreement of sale for 143.10 acres of land for $35m with the BV/Triumph Neighbourhood Democratic Council, following public objection and protests from owners of the land who not only criticised the deal but called the price a “vulgar undervalue.”
“When people objected and started saying we should not be buying the land and it belonged to other people. We said if there are people who made claims and there might be legitimacy to the claims, we don’t want to go against that. So it was safer for us to say, let us take a step back and we can always look elsewhere because it wasn’t an immediate need for us. We don’t absolutely need it,” John Fernandes Chief Executive Officer, Phillip Fernandes, told Stabroek News yesterday when contacted.
“We were looking for opportunities of investment for possible future growth but it wasn’t something that we had a current plan for. That space isn’t something we could develop and turn into something at the moment, so it was more of a long term consideration for us. Guyanese have gotten a raw deal for years and the last thing we wanted was to be part of something where people felt they were getting a raw deal again and we walked,” he explained.
Details of the deal came to light last week when the Agreement document was leaked according to Councillor Elton McCrae, one of the nearly 100 Beterverwagting residents who own part of the contentious lands.
“Property situated at Section G consisting of 143.10 acres,… and being part of a tract of crown land comprising sections F and G Beterverwagting which contains 200 acres as shown on plans by Chalmers dated 5.1.65 and H.I Perkins dated 17.2.90 in the county of Demerara which commences at the Southern extremity of Section L and extends southwards to the East Coast Canal concession, with no buildings and/or erections thereon,” the description of the land on the agreement states.
According to the terms of agreement, JFL is supposed to pay the NDC $20 million on signing the agreement and the remainder when the transport is passed.
McCrae noted that if the document wasn’t leaked, nearly 100 persons would have found themselves without their property whenever in the future they were ready to develop it, and he blames the NDC.
“They want to sell poor people land. That is what this about. Poor people must not own land,” he opined to this newspaper.
“If Councillor Duncan did not object and said that the community should be involved and the deal should be discussed, who knew where we would be,” he added.
The NDC councillor believes that the NDC had plans since last year to dispose of the lands as he questioned why a valuation of the land was done.
“The council did a valuation of Section G last year. What was the driver for that? Just out of the blues they would do a valuation? John Fernandes only made the proposal in August of last year so it could not have been that [deal]. The Council should answer why this was done,” he said.
Several calls to the Chairman of the NDC Jimmaul Bagot proved futile.
Fernandes said the company is always looking for investment opportunities and when it entered into the agreement last August, it believed that the NDC had done its due diligence on ownership and it was why they entered the agreement.
He explained that his company will never want to be part of any contentious land ownership issue and moreso that several persons seem to have legitimate claims.
For McCrae, the Council knows better, as records would show when it was making plans for the Caribbean Development Fund (CDF) programme RAID (Rural Agricultural Infrastructure Development), an assessment revealed that most of the lands were privately owned.
He said that while some persons may have defaulted on their taxes, the majority have not. And even if there are defaulters, he contended that there is a lawful process before selling the land.
“We did a survey of these areas. There is one part which is divided into 290 plots. Of the 290, we could only identify five but we gave a maximum of ten as owned by the council. In 2017 when we were discussing the RAID project, it was already determined that there are no substantial amount of communal or public lands in the backdams. So it is really shocking to hear the council saying they are now owners,” he said.
“They know better. There may have been some defaulters but here is why. Since in the1970s the council has neglected to service the canals and dams to give farmers access into the backlands. If I cannot farm the land how can I pay the taxes? The agreement when I leased it was that it would be initially leased then sold. It also stated that the council shall maintain the canals and drain and they are not doing that. So it was either the council or central government to do it,” he contended.
He is calling on councillors of NDCs throughout the country to be more vigilant and is urging villages that own lands to go into their respective NDCs and check on their property.
