-Ex-Finance Minister says that purchase was for company, not himEx-Finance Minister, Saisnarine Kowlessar, yesterday, insisted that he never benefitted from lands that were sold in 2011 to CARICOM General Insurance Company.Saisnarine Kowlessar makes a point during a tour of Republic Gardens yesterday.Rather, he was acting as a mere officer of the company when he signed off on the agreement,Wholesale Jerseys USA, he said.The 50 acres of lands has since been converted into a gated community behind the Republic Park area.Kowlessar was among a number of CARICOM’s officials who took Kaieteur News on a tour of the project yesterday to talk about the progress of works.Located behind Continental Park,Jerseys NFL Cheap, in what was once a cane field, the area has roads and about 50 percent taken up with homes.Known as Republic Garden, the gated community will join Buddy’s and Windsor Estate that have done significant work in realizing what has been promised to Guyana.Almost 20-odd developers have been granted hundreds of acres of prime lands along the high-demand East Bank Demerara corridor.Many of the developers,NFL Jerseys Cheap, including close friends of the previous administration, have held on to the lands, not doing much despite conditions that they had to build infrastructural works and sell completed homes within a certain time.According to Joshua Safeek, the owner of CARICOM General Insurance, and the tour guide,Jerseys NFL Wholesale, his company responded to an advertisement by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) around 2010-2011 for proposals to develop housing lands along the East Bank Demerara.The company was among several that attended a meeting in early 2011 with CH&PA officials, among them Chief Executive Officer, Myrna Pitt,NFL Jerseys From China, among others.“We submitted an application and were successful. We were later shown the spot that was allocated to us…the part that we are standing on.”According to Safeek, the company started to mobilize but soon after,Soccer Jerseys From China, the owner of nearby Continental Park filed a court case, claiming the allocated 50 acres.The court case only ended in December last year, delaying the deadlines of CARICOM General Insurance. The court ruled in favour of CARICOM, Safeek said.The official insisted that Republic Gardens is no “cookie cutter” affair. The company is very deliberate in allowing owners of the homes to choose their style.“You can take a look at our drainage and way we set up. We would have completed this community a long time ago, in keeping with the conditions, had it not been for the court delays.”According to the 2011 agreement with CARICOM General Insurance, a company that had its registered office at Ruimzeight, West Coast Demerara, Kowlessar is the Chief Executive Officer.CARICOM General Insurance bought the 50 acres at $5M per acre.Based on the agreement, the company was expected to proceed immediately to carry out infrastructural works, including access roads, bridges, culverts, drainage, water and electricity networks.The agreement itself was very vague, giving little deadlines to the developer.Another sister company of CARICOM General Insurance – CARICOM General Land Development Inc. – on April 2, 2014, went ahead and closed another deal for a nearby 25-acre plot in April 2014.? The developer was supposed to pay $225M.This time, the agreement was very specific. The property will have to be used for only residential purposes and for the construction and sale of houses only.This company was supposed to complete all infrastructural works eight months from the time works started.Failure to start infrastructural works within the timeframe could have resulted in CH&PA rescinding the agreement and forfeiting 10 percent of the deposit paid.The housing lands to private developers are currently being reviewed with CH&PA’s new Board expected to announce some decisions with a few weeks on possible sanctions for developers who have not delivered.Some 25,000 applications are on file at CH&PA for house lots.