Recent events review Saturday, April 8th to Friday, April 13th
Gordon Mansfield objected to bail being granted given the seriousness of the threat. Inc. The company’s operations is located on the Berbice River between Kwakwani and Linden with employees from those areas making up the majority of its labour workforce. “I hope it is not going to have any long-term implications for the social well-being of our people, employment levels and export earnings. But more importantly, in the immediate future, that it has no challenges as regards employment and social welfare,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge said yesterday when asked about the issue by Stabroek News. Efforts to contact representatives of the company here proved futile. However, employees here told this newspaper that while operations continued up to yesterday they have been told by company executives to hold all loading of barges and that the company will make an announcement on the 15th of this month. The halt of the loading would be as a result of the Rusal bauxite being blacklisted on major exchanges such as the London Metal Exchange. Nabadingi Gobin, 33, a trader of Charlotte Street, Georgetown; Renard Khan, 31, a fish vendor of Cooper Street, Albouystown; Mark Prince, 39, a taxi driver, of Parfaite Harmonie, WBD; Edward Skeete, 30, a trader of Independence Boulevard, Albouystown . Among the items recovered by the police were four firearms; two 9 MM Glock pistols, one Beretta pistol and one .32 Taurus Pistol, one sledgehammer, two pairs of latex gloves, trade plates and a quantity of live rounds. of Guyana for $598,659,398, VAT exclusive without having a valuation of the property from a competent valuation officer. In the third joint charge, Singh and Brassington were jointly charged for the sale of land to Multi- Cinema Guyana.
Jagdeo dismisses charges against Singh, Brassington as frivolous
While calling the charges laid yesterday against former Finance Minister Ashni Singh and then head of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) Winston Brassington over land sales frivolous, former president Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday said that both acted in accordance with decisions made by his Cabinet. “It is a Cabinet decision, which has been issued back to the Ministry of Finance and to the Privatisation Unit to execute. So, Brassington or Ashni Singh could not have executed these decisions unless the matter came [and] the recommendation was approved by the Cabinet,” a seemingly upset Jagdeo yesterday told a two-hour long press conference he hosted. Singh and Brassington were yesterday charged in absentia with three counts of misconduct in public office over the sale of three tracts of government land on the East Coast of Demerara, between December, 2008 and May, 2011. In one instance, it is alleged that the property was sold below market value, while in the other two the deals went ahead without proper valuations of the land. It is alleged that Singh and Brassington sold a tract of land, being 4.7 acres at Plantation Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, which was the property of Guyana, for the sum of $150 million to Scady Business Corporation, while knowing that the property was valued at $340 million by Rodrigues Architects Limited.
Appeal court clears way for trial of Westford, Cummings over alleged bid to steal gov’t vehicles
The trial of former Public Service Minister Dr. Jennifer Westford and the ministry’s former Chief Personnel Officer Margaret Cummings, who are accused of attempting to steal state vehicles, can now continue after the Appeal Court discharged their request to stay the proceedings against them in the magistrate’s court. On Wednesday, Justices of Appeal Rishi Persaud, Arif Bulkan and Rafiq Khan lifted the stay which had previously been granted by Justice of Appeal Dawn Gregory, thereby paving the way for the trial to proceed. Justice Gregory had granted the stay to halt the trial, until the hearing and determination of an appeal the women had filed against former acting Chief Justice Yonette CummingsEdwards’ rejection of their application to have the High Court hear their case, instead of the lower court. A date is yet to be set for the hearing of that appeal. In arguments before the Court on Wednesday, Solicitor General Kim Kyte advanced that Justice Gregory had misdirected herself in law, while noting that she had no jurisdiction to grant the order. Kyte argued, also, that the applicants’ appeal has no merit and no real prospect of success.