30 Garnett Street. Campbellville
On Wednesday, representatives of Ansa McAl disclosed that according to their files, the property at 30 Garnett Street was sub-divided more than 40 years ago between two brothers. However, one is claiming that no sub-division happened and fraud was involved.
Ansa McAl in 2015 bought out 90.1Fm. That radio station, known as IRadio, had erected a tower on a piece of land of the Lot 30 Garnett Street.
Overseas-based Guyanese, Victor Sukhai, is claiming that he has a Transport giving him ownership of the land and that he had not given anyone permission to erect a radio tower.
However, according to Ansa McAl in documents produced to the newspaper, the land is sub-divided.
The land that the radio station bought is purportedly from Sukhai’s older brother, Kissoon Lall, who had a Transport for it.
It was disclosed that while the lands appear to have been sub-divided, the descriptions appear not to be specific enough as to which brother owns what.
According to officials of Ansa McAl, they are anxious to have the matter clarified once and for all, at the level of the courts.
They invited Sukhai to start talks with them to resolve the matter.
Sukhai, 70, is based in New York. He said that he was bequeathed the Garnett Street property by his mother via a will that she made in 1976.
According to documents provided, the will left $25 for the older brother, Kissoon Lall, with the second son, Bholan Nauth Sukhai, to receive $2,000. The rest of the estate was left to Sukhai, the third son.
On June 10, 1977, the mother died and less than a year later, on April 10, 1978, the property was transferred via a Transport into Sukhai’s name.
According to Sukhai, he left his sister in the home and went abroad to live.
The airport worker said that in September, he visited a lawyer, Vrinda Jagan, in New York where he instructed her to prepare an Irrevocable Power of Attorney in the name of Parmanand Maraj. Maraj is Sukhai’s nephew-in-law.
Maraj, via the document, was authorized to conduct business pertaining to the Garnett Street property.
However, Maraj claimed he was threatened when he went there by persons in the home.
On the land, Maraj saw a massive radio tower.
Maraj was told that the land now belonged to the owners of the radio station- known as IRadio. That radio had linkages to former Natural Resources Minister, Robert Persaud, whose wife Kamini Persaud, was one of the directors.
IRadio had its office on the western side of the Garnett Street property, on Seaforth Street.
It built the station there and then constructed the tower on the lands that Sukhai said that he owns.
How the property ended up in hands of IRadio, now sold to Ansa McAl, is what the US-based Guyanese man wanted to know.
According to documents pertaining to the property, filed at the courts, Kissoon Lall, sold the property to one Diaram Ojha, of 28 Garnett Street, in 2009. He had the title to one-half of the property at 30 Garnett Street, Campbellville.
Kissoon Lall has the same name as the eldest brother of Sukhai who was left $25 by his late mother in a will.
In June 2013, Diaram Ojha resold the property to one Ryan Dev Basdeo, of Railway Embankment, Cummings Lodge for $5M. Basdeo is said to be the nephew of former President Bharrat Jagdeo.
Shortly after the Coalition Government entered office in May 2015, Jagdeo’s nephew flipped the property to IRadio Incorporated for a healthy $32.2M.
The former president was the one who a few weeks before he ended his second term in office in November 2011, controversially approved several radio licences to close family and friends and members of the People’s Progressive Party.
Among those licences was the one to IRadio.
