John Fernandes Limited (JFL) has declined to accept a refund cheque from the Beterverwagting/ Triumph Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) which was a down payment for the sale of 143 acres of land which the NDC wants to repudiate.
In declining the refund cheque for $20m, JFL noted that it has transferred its interest in the matter to Mohamed’s Sons and Daughters Trading, Mining, Logging and Construction Inc (MSDTMLC). The latter company has been pressing the NDC to complete the deal but the NDC had been hoping that its refund to JFL would bring the matter to an end. That is however not the case.
MSDTMLC has taken the NDC to court in a bid to secure the 143 acres some of which is owned by villagers.
“We acknowledge receipt of your letter dated September28, 2022, along with the accompanying cheque payable to John Fernandes in the amount of twenty million Guyana dollars…we wish to indicate that while JFL has no intention of purchasing the property, you would appreciate that all of our rights under the contract between the NDC and JFL have been signed over to Mohamed’s Sons and Daughters Trading, Min-ing, Logging and Con-struction Inc.,” the letter signed by JFL Company Secretary Zach Gonsalves states.
Efforts by Stabroek News yesterday to contact both JFL and MSDTMLC for comment proved futile.
Chairman of the BV/ Triumph NDC, Jimmaul Bagot yesterday told this newspaper that JFL’s latest move concretizes his view that the company is still interested in the lands but he said that the NDC will not be bullied.
Bagot who had an-nounced that he would be resigning as Chairperson said that he has since put that plan on hold to “see out to completion” the issue regarding the lands, given that it was under his tenure that the original agreement with JFL had been made.
He said that he was surprised when he received a call from the Clerk of the NDC informing him that the cheque and accompanying letter from JFL had been received.
Bagot and the NDC had last month called a press conference to relay that it was fighting an attempt to “bully” it into giving over 143 acres of land under the aborted deal with JFL.
Emphasising that the council will not be bullied, Bagot had said that the local authority simply cannot sell what it doesn’t own, much less to a company it never had an agreement with – MSDTMLC.
MSDTMLC has since filed court proceedings asking that the NDC be ordered to release to it the 143 acres located at BV, once it would have paid the balance of the $35 million purchase price which the NDC had originally agreed with JFL.
“We’ve made it clear to them in several letters that we cannot sell what we don’t own. Hence, we had to rescind the agreement. However, they’re still pursuing it. I also want to make it clear that the NDC has already refunded John Fernandes the sum of $20 million..,” Bagot had said then.
Forthwith
MSDTMLC wants the NDC to forthwith complete all conveyancing of property and the company is then seeking to have the court order the Registrar of Deeds to convey the property in question to it.
Further, the company wants to be permitted to pay all the outstanding statutory and tax liabilities arising as a result of the conveyance of the property as a precondition of the conveyance and to deduct the value thereof from the balance of the purchase price.
The company is also seeking court costs and any further order the court deems just to grant.
Mohamed’s Sons and Daughters had noted that on November 30th of last year, the NDC entered into an agreement with JFL to purchase the property, but that on May 24th of this year, JFL assigned all its rights, title, interests, and benefits to it under an Agreement of Sale and Purchase via Deed of Assignment No. 1042/ 2022.
The company said that on July 21st of this year, its attorneys wrote the NDC informing them of the assignment of the rights and purchase to it, thereby requesting the NDC to take the necessary actions to ensure the conveyance of the Property to the Applicant within 14 days of receipt thereof pursuant to the terms of the assignment.
The company said that the NDC failed to comply with the request and despite issuing a pre-action demand, the NDC has refused to convey the property to it.
Bagot pointed fingers at JFL, although he noted that the company had publicly stated that it was no longer interested in the controversial land.
“John Fernandes would have published a notice in the Stabroek (News) where they would have indicated that they have no interests—that they’re distancing themselves from any agent or anyone whatsoever who are claiming to have some vested interest in the lands located in Section G, BV,” he said, before noting that to its surprise, it received the notice of the court action filed on behalf of Mohamed Sons and Daughters, although it thought the matter had been put to rest.
Last December, this newspaper reported on the controversial agreement between JFL and the NDC. Details of the $35 million deal had only come to light when the agreement document was leaked, according to Councilor Elton McRae, one of the nearly 100 Beterverwagting residents who own part of the lands that were to be sold.
According to the terms of agreement, JFL was supposed to pay the NDC $20 million on signing the agreement and the remainder when the transport was passed.
McRae had 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 blamed the NDC.
John Fernandes had said that when it learned of the objections, it immediately made the decision to pull out of the deal because it did not want to be part of a process where persons felt they were being shortchanged.
“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 Limited’s Chief Executive Officer Phillip Fernandes had told this newspaper.
“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 added.
