Jul 07, 2020 News
Days after the March 2 General and Regional Elections, a senior official of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Inc. (NICIL), a state-owned company that handles privatization for government, received a plot of land in Region 10.
According to the March 21, 2020 Official Gazette of Guyana, which records transfers of State properties, the land was transferred to Privatisation Specialist, Racheal Henry. Although Henry’s address is listed as Campbellville, Georgetown, the property in question is located at Plantation Noitgedacht, in Linden, Region 10.
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The property is described as 0.152 of an acre, bearing Lot number 7B, or Lot 43, located on the right bank of the Demerara River. The transaction was signed off on February 28, 2020, days before the elections but only published in the Official Gazette on March 21, 2020.
Yesterday, Henry was called and asked about the transaction. She said immediately that she had no comments. She also said she is unhappy about the coverage of NICIL by a number of media houses.
Henry was a key player in the much-publicised transactions involving prime lands at Ogle, which were once under sugar cultivation but now being divested by NICIL to raise money for the beleaguered Guyana Sugar Corporation.
Listed as the Head of the Business Development Unit of NICIL, Henry would have been one of the point persons in striking deals with a number of overseas investors. Three hotels were promised to be built in the area not far from Ogle airport.
There was a flurry of sod-turning exercises at Ogle shortly before the elections. The lands would be seen as strategic as they are located not far from a planned highway that will link the East Coast to the East Bank of Demerara, to reduce the daily congestion.
One of the transactions made the news last week after the beneficiary, Navigant Builders, which had developed the iconic Windsor Estates on the East Bank Demerara, reportedly received the lands in their name although the transaction was not paid for and completed. The matters raised serious questions about NICIL’s handling of the state lands, about 1,000 acres that had become opened between Ogle and Enmore for development.