Sports Commission enters agreement with Cevons for sale of Mandela Avenue land

The National Sports Commission on Monday agreed to sell a plot of land on Mandela Avenue, Georgetown, to Cevons Waste Management.

This comes two months after Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo had announced that the government had settled the matter with the company and would no longer seek to repossess the land, which the government had claimed was sold illegally to the company by Trevor Benn, the former Commissioner of the Lands and Surveys Commission.

Jagdeo did not provide details of the settlement at the time.

Cevons owner Morse Archer said the land was purchased from the Lands and Surveys Commission in 2018 for $100M; he said he had already paid $80M.

The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport Monday announced via its Facebook page that the National Sports Commission was directed by government to sell the land to Cevons. Details of the agreement were not released.

The agreement was entered into in the boardroom of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, in the presence of the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Charles Ramson Jr., Permanent Secretary Melissa Tucker, Commissioners of the National Sports Commission Dellon Davidson, Philip Fernandes, Cristy Campbell, Cheteram Ramdial and Kashif Muhammed, the Director of Sport Steve Ninvalle, and Morse Archer.

Archer was informed by a letter from the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, SC, in February that the government was looking to repossess the land as it was illegally sold to him by Benn.

Nandlall later said that the sale was being reviewed on a direct appeal by Archer to President Irfaan Ali, but he emphasised that the transaction remains highly illegal.