…Luncheon testifies in courtQueen’s Atlantic Investment Incorporated (QAII) – of which the Chief executive is PresidentBobby RamroopBharrat Jagdeo’s best friend Bobby Ramroop – was approached by the National Industrial Commercial Investment Limited (NICIL) to acquire the Sanata Complex.This is according to sworn testimony by Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, as the libel case brought by President Jagdeo against Kaieteur News columnist Freddie Kissoon,Cheap Jerseys, publisher Glenn Lall and Editor-in-chief Adam Harris continued in the High Court yesterday.NICIL, headed by Winston Brassington, is the government body that is tasked with the disposal of state assets.While Dr Luncheon told the court that no tenders were received for the property and hence the negotiation of a deal with Queens Atlantic,Supply Cheap Jerseys, he later told the same court that NICIL invited “the tenderers” to fashion a lease under which the Sanata Complex could be acquired.At the time of heated controversy regarding the deal in 2008, the government had claimed that it was Queens Atlantic that had staked a claim to the property in mid-2007, and had not specifically said that it was NICIL that went to the company to strike a deal.For the deal to go through, NICIL held direct negotiations with QAII to “fashion” a special agreement, Dr Luncheon testified; that agreement included tax holidays that were at the time illegal.The government, following an apology from the Head of the Guyana Office for Investment,Discount NFL Jerseys, Geoffrey DaSilva, then had to go to the National Assembly to alter the laws to accommodate the tax holidays that were meant for the company to set up textile and antibiotics operations.Luncheon told the court that the agreement was designed so as to allow for the company to buy the property once it had fulfilled the conditions of the lease agreement. He said that the company has since exercised that option and has bought the property of 18.871 acres.President Bharrat JagdeoThere is no indication of how much the property was eventually sold for.Dr Luncheon said that when the Sanata Complex was abandoned by a Chinese leaseholder, NICIL went out to tender but attracted no takers.It was then that he said NICIL “offered” in direct discussions and negotiations conditions for a new lease. That offer he said was made to QAII.Dr Luncheon said that to his recollection that the company fulfilled the investments it said it would make in a three to four-year period and then exercised the option to buy the property.Justice Brassington Reynolds sought to clarify from Dr Luncheon what he had said and he,Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping, Dr Luncheon, restated that NICIL approached Queens Atlantic to work out an arrangement to acquire the Sanata property.In mid May 2088, Head of the Privatisation Unit,NFL Jerseys From China, Winston Brassington,Discount NFL Jerseys, said that in mid-2007, a proposal to lease the complex was received from QAII, and following detailed discussions/negotiations, a paper submitted by the Privatisation Unit to the Privatisation Board, on May 9, unanimously recommended approval of the proposal.The recommendations of the Board were then approved by Cabinet in May 2007, Brassington said. President Jagdeo chairs the Cabinet, which includes his council of Ministers. He had claimed at a press conference that since Ramroop is his best friend he excused himself from the process.In 1998 Sanata was closed and all workers’ services were severed. In 2000, the company was dissolved and its assets and liabilities transferred to the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).Winston BrassingtonQAII has committed to employ 1, 200 workers in setting up a modern textile mill for gauze, bandages and denim production; a state-of-the-art printery, an antibiotics plant and a research and development facility; a pharmaceutical export processing facility and a hardware manufacturing division.It is not certain whether all of these operations are in place and allowed for the sale of the Sanata complex. The complex has since been sold to Queen’s Atlantic Investment.