Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice pres­i­dent David Ab­du­lah is call­ing for a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the sale, lease and theft of Ca­roni lands by con­trac­tors and gov­ern­ment fi­nanciers.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at Bal­main, Cou­va, yes­ter­day, Ab­du­lah said he was now con­cerned that the as­sets of Petrotrin will al­so be pil­laged like the Ca­roni land as­sets.

The com­pa­ny, which closed down in Au­gust 2003, once owned 76,608 acres of land as well as milling/pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ties, a sug­ar house, re­search cen­tre, beach hous­es, golf cours­es and scores of bun­ga­lows scat­tered across the sug­ar belt.

But Ab­du­lah said since the com­pa­ny closed there had been ev­i­dence that con­trac­tors and big busi­ness­men were us­ing the fa­cil­i­ties to en­rich them­selves while thou­sands of work­ers and their de­pen­dents, who worked in the sug­ar in­dus­try, con­tin­ue to face hard times.

“I want an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how valu­able lands of Ca­roni have end­ed up in the hands of con­trac­tors and big busi­ness­men. With the clo­sure of Ca­roni, there was land grab­bing. With the clo­sure of Petrotrin I sus­pect the same thing has hap­pened,” Ab­du­lah said.

He added, “Con­trac­tors and busi­ness­peo­ple are get­ting lands to which they are not en­ti­tled. This is ben­e­fit­ting mil­lion­aires and bil­lion­aires. Peo­ple who were en­ti­tled to prop­er­ty af­ter their VSEP are be­ing de­nied their le­gal en­ti­tle­ments.”

Say­ing tax­pay­ers should have ben­e­fit­ted from the State’s as­sets, Ab­du­lah ques­tioned how much of the Ca­roni lands had been pil­fered since the com­pa­ny closed.

As­so­ci­a­tion of Tech­ni­cal Ad­min­is­tra­tive and Su­per­vi­so­ry Staff pres­i­dent Wash­ing­ton De­mas, who al­so spoke at the meet­ing, said he want­ed to know the terms and con­di­tions of the lease giv­en with re­gard to the Ca­roni jet­ty, the sug­ar house and the four bun­ga­lows owned by a well-known sport­ing man­ag­er.

Al­leg­ing Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat was re­spon­si­ble for the giv­ing away of state as­sets to pre­ferred peo­ple, De­mas de­mand­ed to know why the Com­mis­sion­er of State lands had not act­ed to curb land grab­bing. He claimed Ramb­harat was the own­er of a Ca­roni bun­ga­low which is now oc­cu­pied by a pop­u­lar doc­tor.

“This is a clear case of dis­crim­i­na­tion, cor­rup­tion and nepo­tism in­volved,” De­mas said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, how­ev­er, Ramb­harat said he left Ca­roni in 2004 and has had no in­volve­ment in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Ca­roni’s lands since he left.

With re­gard to the is­su­ing of four bun­ga­lows to a sports man­ag­er, Ramb­harat said, “These are al­le­ga­tions that have been made for sev­er­al years. (Name called) en­tered in­to an arrange­ment ap­proved by the board of Ca­roni Ltd be­fore the clo­sure of the com­pa­ny. I left the com­pa­ny in 2004 and have had no in­volve­ment in that mat­ter since. When I was in­volved in those mat­ters it was in my role as cor­po­rate sec­re­tary to the board.”

Asked whether he had a bun­ga­low, Ramb­harat said, “Un­der the VSEP I was of­fered, like all oth­er oc­cu­pants, the house I oc­cu­pied for sale. I ac­cept­ed the of­fer. All the oth­er bun­ga­low oc­cu­pants took Ca­roni Ltd to the In­dus­tri­al Court to chal­lenge the price of the bun­ga­lows. I am the on­ly per­son who did not go to court.

“I have been wait­ing since 2004 for Ca­roni to com­plete the sale. When I left the coun­try in 2008, (name called) took over the bun­ga­low in my ab­sence and con­tin­ues to look af­ter the prop­er­ty. Noth­ing is strange about that.”

He added, “As far as I know, Mr De­mas was al­lo­cat­ed two prop­er­ties and I am not aware whether he oc­cu­pies both or any of those prop­er­ties.”

Ramb­harat said the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion has been on an ex­er­cise to go to each prop­er­ty to de­ter­mine the le­git­i­ma­cy of each oc­cu­pant and cer­tain peo­ple ap­pear un­hap­py. This is why the new al­le­ga­tions are now be­ing made.

“Mr De­mas al­so com­plained to me re­cent­ly that the Com­mis­sion­er of State Land served no­tice on some­one who had con­vert­ed the res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty in­to a pub­lic mar­ket and was rent­ing space to peo­ple to con­duct re­tail sales. I have not in­ter­fered with the com­mis­sion­er do­ing her work.

“As min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for lands, all land trans­ac­tions must be ap­proved by Cab­i­net and I am in­volved in no land trans­ac­tion as min­is­ter which has not been ap­proved by the Cab­i­net,” Ramb­harat said.

He re­ferred fur­ther ques­tions to Ca­roni chair­man Jer­ry Hospedales but calls to Hospedales’ cell­phone went unan­swered.