Nineteen investors on Thursday signed lease agreements for land at the Eccles Industrial Estate, East Bank Demerara with expanded occupancy from 25 years to 99 years which they had requested.
In addition, the government offered the developed land to manufacturers at the lease premium of 25% of the developmental cost and rent at $1 per annum per square foot, according to Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Manzoor Nadir, in whose boardroom the agreements to lease the land were signed. The agreement to lease is a document that is necessary before the actual leases are signed before the Registrar of Deeds.
The minister explained to the investors that all leases that are greater than 21 years are treated in the same manner as legal transports and must be filed, advertised and duly registered. "This safeguards both the lessor and the lessee over this longer period," the minister said.
Nadir said that the lease imposes responsibilities on the part of the investor to develop the land within a certain period of time.
Investors will have three months from the time of the signing of the leases to submit their plans to the relevant authorities for approval. In addition, construction must commence within three months of the plans being approved.
"In all, the investors will have 12 months to get this project up and running," the minister told the investors adding that this was to prevent persons from "land banking".
"We need to ensure that persons don't hold the land and then hold persons who need land for their manufacturing entities to ransom. We are strongly going to implement these conditions of the lease," the minister said.
The leases are technically executed by the National Industrial Commercial & Investment Limited (NICIL), whose head Winston Brassington was present at the signing. NICIL is the holding company for all of the industrial estates.
Brassington, explaining the role of NICIL, said that it was minimal in the scheme of things but essentially the organisation was the landlord of the properties and all payments were made to NICIL.
He said that administratively much of the responsibility for monitoring and managing other aspects of the lease had been delegated to other agencies.
Nadir pointed out that the manufacturing sector had been calling for developed land and disclosed that it cost the government about $5 million an acre to put in roads, lights, water, do surveys, the designs and the environmental studies.
The minister said that the government recognised the need to stand with the manufacturers since it was committed to the growth of the economy by private sector-led investments.
"We see ourselves as the facilitator of the initiatives by the private sector," the minister said, adding that the National Development Strategy states in its recommendation: "Although the private sector is expected to be the main productive force in the economy and the predominant source of employment creation, central government must facilitate the implementation of this strategy by providing infrastructure support to the sector along with appropriate policies and legal framework."
According to the minister, as part of the government's poverty reduction paper it was stated that there was a need to expand the economic base to support the poor by improving the environment for manufacturing and will respond and consider private sector requests for support.
He described Thursday's ceremony as very "significant" as work at the industrial estate had not moved as fast as it should have done in the past because many of the investors said that they needed a bankable document to take to the lending institution and that document was the lease.
Some of the industries earmarked for the estate are food processing, furniture manufacturing, industrial engineering, electrical engineering and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Asked about government plans for a municipal waste disposal site at Eccles, Chairman of the Eccles Industrial Estate Committee, Lloyd Rose, said while there had been talks he was not aware that any decision had been reached as yet.
However, he said, should it be decided upon and the site moved to Eccles the investors would have a "serious concern" and they have already aired those sentiments.
One of the potential investors, Managing Director of Harden & Sons Investment, Richard Persaud, said he would be setting up a business to process raw lumber and bring it to a finished state.
He described the terms of the agreement in the lease as very "satisfactory." Persaud said that the country needed investors to get it moving. He opined that the problem facing most investors was the lack of confidence that their business would be successful because of the unstable situation in the country.
Persaud said he hoped that the government and the main opposition party could work on creating a stable society since this was of paramount importance to the country's development.
He described the Eccles site as being very conducive to investment since it was an ideal location, only ten minutes from the city.
Lakhram Singh of Mike's Pharmacy also found the terms of the agreement satisfactory disclosing that he along with Shaam Outar, would be repackaging and bottling products.
The other persons who received leases were Anthony Amres of Ready Mix Con-crete Ltd; Rudolph Omallo of Omallo & Daughters; Neil Singh of SN Singh & Sons; Lloyd Singh of IPA Guyana Ltd; James Arjune, of Metro Office & Computer Supplies; Nazar Mohamed of Mohamed's Enterprise; K. Brijlall of Technical Services Inc; Sewchand Jafer of Americans Standard Block; Boyo Ramsaroop of BB Estate Gardens; Jainarine Singh, of Rainforest Lumber Dealers; Hilton Jagmohan, of Print Right; Indrani Correia of Correia & Correia Ltd; Shafeek Farouz of Twins Manufacturing Chemists; Sheik Hassan of Sheik Hassan Production; Terry Singh; and Deolall Puran of Devo Lumber Yard.