Share­hold­ers of Val­sayn Re­sort (Kay Don­na Dri­ve-In Cin­e­ma), in­clud­ing Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, may re­ceive lit­tle com­pen­sa­tion from the State af­ter it was re­vealed that they did not have a cur­rent lease for the land at the time it was ac­quired by the Gov­ern­ment for the con­struc­tion of the Curepe In­ter­change.

Val­sayn Re­sort sub­mit­ted an $18 mil­lion claim for the prop­er­ty but the group could end up on the "los­ing end." The $18 mil­lion claim will be for cur­tilage and what­ev­er im­prove­ments were made to the prop­er­ty and not for the land it­self, which be­longs to the State.

This is ac­cord­ing to act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Navin Ram­s­ingh, who spoke with the Sun­day Guardian four days af­ter the $221 mil­lion Curepe In­ter­change was of­fi­cial­ly opened by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

On Fri­day, Ram­s­ingh sought to clear the air on ru­mours that his boss, Sinanan, the Trans­port Min­is­ter, who had a ben­e­fi­cial in­ter­est in Val­sayn Re­sort, was paid $100 mil­lion for lands be­long­ing to Kay Don­na Dri­ve-In Cin­e­ma.

In 2013, Ram­s­ingh said,Val­sayn Re­sort re­ceived no­tice that the Gov­ern­ment would re­quire, through com­pul­so­ry ac­qui­si­tion, three-and-a-half acres of the cin­e­ma's five-acre par­cel of land to build the in­ter­change. The land was need­ed for con­struc­tion of a road re­serve.

Around that same time, Val­sayn Re­sort had been ne­go­ti­at­ing with Ca­roni 1975 Ltd to have their ex­pired lease for the state land re­newed.

"And for that rea­son, Valysan Re­sort on­ly put in a $18 mil­lion claim for the cur­tilage and what­ev­er im­prove­ments that had been made to the prop­er­ty and not for the land," he said. The claim was sub­mit­ted to the Com­mis­sion­er of Val­u­a­tions (COV) us­ing a quan­ti­ty sur­vey­or.

"They made a claim which is be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed. So far they have not re­ceived any mon­ey...not one cent," Ram­s­ingh in­sist­ed.

When the Gov­ern­ment took pos­ses­sion of the land in 2019, Ram­s­ingh said they had to de­mol­ish a movie the­atre screen, its perime­ter walls, a large build­ing and the cin­e­ma's play­ground which was out­fit­ted with recre­ation­al equip­ment.

"That claim is still be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed and the com­mis­sion­er will de­ter­mine what is a fair price that they should be paid for the im­prove­ments made to the prop­er­ty. Or they may come and say they are not pay­ing any...go to court. So the com­mis­sion­er could re­ject their claim based on their val­ue."

Ram­s­ingh said many peo­ple are un­aware that Val­sayn Re­sort owns a por­tion of the land and is "still in pos­ses­sion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly one acre of leased land to which they have ap­plied for a new lease."

"So that lease Val­sayn Re­sort ap­plied for, they will now have to pay the State. The State would have to deduct a pay­ment from the $18 mil­lion claim for the new lease."

He said if the State agrees to pay Val­sayn Re­sort $5, $10 or $15 mil­lion, they would still have to fork out mon­ey for the land they cur­rent­ly oc­cu­py.

"That new lease will ob­vi­ous­ly at­tract a pay­ment to the State. So at the end of the day, the Gov­ern­ment might pay Kay Don­na for the biggest par­cel of land the least amount of mon­ey...or if any at all."

He said Val­sayn Re­sort which has been very co­op­er­a­tive from the in­cep­tion of the project might end up on the "los­ing end." Ram­s­ingh could not say when the COV will set­tle the out­stand­ing claim.

If Val­sayn Re­sort had a re­newed lease in hand they could have put in a far larg­er claim, said Ram­s­ingh, who al­so works as the min­istry's chief tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer.

While Val­sayn Re­sort was ac­cused of be­ing paid big bucks, Ram­s­ingh said some af­fect­ed home­own­ers had sub­mit­ted to the COV claims rang­ing from $12 to $16 mil­lion.

"This was just for one lot of land with a prop­er­ty on it. Ob­vi­ous­ly, the Com­mis­sion­er of Val­u­a­tions did not agree with some of the claims."

Fol­low­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, the State paid some res­i­dents who sur­ren­dered their prop­er­ties be­tween $500,000 to $5.5 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

Kay Don­na Dri­ve-In Cin­e­ma was owned by Prof Max Awong whose busi­ness went in­to re­ceiver­ship some time in the 1990s and the com­pa­ny was put up for sale. A group of busi­ness­men in 1998 came to­geth­er and formed Val­sayn Re­sort which bought the coun­try's on­ly dri­ve-in cin­e­ma.

The cin­e­ma was even­tu­al­ly up­grad­ed and re­opened in ear­ly 2000. In 2010, the cin­e­ma closed its doors but op­er­at­ed as a ware­house fa­cil­i­ty.

On Sat­ur­day, Sinanan said ru­mours about Val­sayn Re­sort be­ing paid $100 mil­lion for the land was fake news and "mis­chief" be­ing per­pe­trat­ed by the Op­po­si­tion.

"Some home­own­ers want­ed the same amount that Val­sayn Re­sort got on­ly to re­alise that it was not paid."

Sinanan said no­body would be in­ter­est­ed in the Gov­ern­ment sav­ing $274 mil­lion with the Curepe In­ter­change project. "But they would con­tin­u­ous­ly talk about the fake $100 mil­lion pay­out."

Un­der the then Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment the in­ter­change in­clud­ing land ac­qui­si­tion was es­ti­mat­ed to cost $550 mil­lion but the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion brought down the fig­ure to $297 mil­lion which in­cludes land ac­qui­si­tion pay­outs.

Cab­i­net ap­proved $86 mil­lion to pay home and busi­ness own­ers

On Fri­day, Ram­s­ingh gave a break­down of the prop­er­ties the State had to ac­quire and the pay­ments made to those who were af­fect­ed by the de­vel­op­ment of the in­ter­change.

He said the State ac­quired 37 parcels of land, 11 of which had build­ings while 14 had on­ly land. In­clud­ed in the land ac­qui­si­tion were two parcels be­long­ing to the State, while five were owned by Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um.

The num­ber of peo­ple dis­lo­cat­ed, Ram­s­ingh said, were 11.

Out of the 25 parcels of pri­vate land the State need­ed, Ram­s­ingh said they re­ceived claims from 20 parcels.

"We gave un­con­di­tion­al of­fers to 19 of the parcels in terms of pay­ment."

Out­lin­ing the de­tails, Ram­s­ingh said ten prop­er­ty own­ers re­quest­ed an 80 per cent ad­vance pay­ment to­talling $24 mil­lion. The re­main­ing 20 per cent still has to be paid.

Three home­own­ers, he said, have al­ready col­lect­ed 100 per cent pay­ment. "We just have two ne­go­ti­a­tions that are on­go­ing and one claim to be sub­mit­ted." He said $45 mil­lion was the fig­ure the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands had giv­en as an "un­con­di­tion­al of­fer."

"The State paid every­body 80 per cent and we al­so made land avail­able to them in Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment based on a so­cial sur­vey. These lands were made avail­able to them at a re­duced price...it (land) was less than $300,000. All the res­i­dents took ad­van­tage of it."

He said most of the peo­ple who were dis­lo­cat­ed have start­ed to build their new homes.

Sinanan said Cab­i­net ap­proved $86 mil­lion to be paid to home and busi­ness own­ers whose prop­er­ties fell in the di­rect path of the in­ter­change.

"That is why we have es­ti­mat­ed that we will com­plete the land ac­qui­si­tion way with­in the re­duced bud­get that Cab­i­net has agreed to. We are well with­in that bud­get with just three more prop­er­ties to com­plete."

Sinanan said if prop­er­ty own­ers feel that the val­ue the State of­fered for their lands was un­fair, they can seek re­dress through the court and "what they will get is in­ter­est at a rate of six per cent on the dif­fer­ence" up­on com­ple­tion of the mat­ter.