See below the full statement issued by Minister of Housing and Water Collin Croal:
I note the recent utterances by Alliance For Change Leader and 2025 Elections Presidential Candidate, with regard to the CHPA’s allocation of lands at Ogle for a residential development project.
What must first be addressed is the fact that, as is typical of his personal style of making absurd and implausible claims on social media instead of a medium of reliable record, Mr. Hughes took to his personal Facebook page to publicise what he purports to be genuine interrogation of public accountability. It would be recalled that he used the same social media methodology of making the pseudo-legal argument that 34 rounded up, and not 33 (as is clear in the Constitution), was the requisite Parliamentary majority to pass a No Confidence Motion; this was an argument he refused to represent himself in any court of law, leaving others to do the implausible on his behalf.
In this instant, Mr. Hughes has taken to social media once again to cast aspersions on a legitimate transaction undertaken by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA). On his Facebook page, Hughes makes the query:
“Can the CHPA disclose the list of names of persons who have been able to purchase land at Plantation Ogle at the same rate as NEW GLOBAL INVESTMENT INCORPORATED.”
To answer that question, Mr., Hughes simply needed to check his own law firm records, not Facebook. When the current government challenged 23 APNU+AFC government land transfers in the Ogle area, all made when his party was illegitimately occupying the seat of government and should have been constrained from engaging in any such transactions, some of the beneficiaries of that corruption predictably went to the firm of Hughes, Fields and Stoby for legal representation.
In all of those deals, the lands were sold at $30 million per acre and less, something any competent lawyer would have been aware of, considering that beneficiaries were his clients. In addition to the clandestine way in which those transactions were undertaken, transfers of the lands to the ‘purchasers’ were accomplished in record time, and in many instances with less than twenty percent (20%) of the value paid to the state. In one instance, property valued at $2 billion was transferred on payment of less than 10% of the value.
Mr. Hughes’ party’s actions in government with regard to the illegitimate transfer of lands in the same area not only occurred in the lead up to elections, 2020, but after when they were involved in seeking to rig those elections in the clear view of the rest of world and in the middle of a global pandemic, something that is public record.
As is covered in an article published in Stabroek News on October 30 of 2020, “Former gov’t passed title for Ogle land without agreed payment from developer”:
“Two days before the March 2nd polls, the David Granger-led Cabinet approved the agreement for the sale of land at Ogle earmarked for an ambitious Caribbean Marketing Enterprises Inc. (CMEI) hotels project and later issued an order for the transfer of the title although the company failed to meet agreed terms, including the submission of records for due diligence and a 50% down payment, a review has found.”
And in a Kaieteur News article, of June 2020, while Mr. Hughes’ party was still desperately and illegally clinging to power over three months after having lost the March 2020 elections, we learned that:
“As Guyana gets ready for a long-overdue and contentious declaration of the March 2 General Elections, there is evidence now that moves are underway to sign away large portions of former sugar lands on the East Coast of Demerara. According to a number of vesting orders, transactions were signed by the Finance Ministry and others for the transfer of immovable property starting from Goedverwagting, in the Ogle airport going east. The lands are former lands of the Guyana Sugar Corporation and lie near the former headquarters of the Guyana Sugar Corporation at Ogle. These are prime spots that are located near a major planned highway that would link the East Coast to the East Bank transportation network”
‘De facto Govt. in mad rush to legalize land deals – Hundreds of acres of prime East Coast land involved’ – Kaieteur News, June 21, 2020
Mr. Hughes was silent in both these instances, his only public utterances focused on legitimizing the clear attempt at theft of the elections.
In contrast, the lands recently allocated by the CHPA at the rear of Plantations Ogle, Goedverwagting and Sparendaam, have been earmarked for residential developments with an Agreement of Sale and Purchase with clear conditions on the terms of agreement for development, a standard and non-negotiable 30 percent downpayment, and strict specifications that these developments must be completed in specified phases and that the CHPA will only effect transfers upon the conditions being met. Equally importantly, the allocations have been made under a legitimately elected government, one in place despite the best efforts of Mr. Hughes and his party to deny it.
In closing, Hughes’ queries are typical of his pattern of not only hypocrisy and dishonesty, but also cowardly opportunism. When a handful of persons were granted land in opaque transactions engaged in by an illegitimate government in the middle of it seeking to steal the elections it lost, not only was Hughes silent, but he would end up representing the interests of those who benefited from that corruption. Now that lands have been legally and transparently allocated under clear criteria and at the same market value as those allocated under his party’s government, he suddenly has an interest in the probity of legitimate government transactions.
