Minister for Housing and Local Government Richard Fredrick is calling on the opposition leader Allen Chastanet to apologize to the public for what he says was an attempt of deceit.
In a press briefing held on Monday 17th April, 2023 the minister expressed his disappointment with a post made to social media by the opposition leader which insinuated that land was sold at a cost of $6,580,000.00.
The minister says that the information provided by the opposition leader is in fact false as he says the land was sold at 3.5 Million Dollars.
“He posted that a given parcel of land, parcel eleven which was valued at a sum of 6.5 million dollars was the land that we had allegedly sold. What piqued my interest is that there were two renowned quantity surveyors in question one who did the valuation in 2013 and one who did the current valuation and basically I felt that two professionals could not have had such a vast difference in value for the same piece of vacant property known as parcel 11. One was 6.5 and the other 3.5.” he stated.
In a post made by Allen Chastanet on March 28th, 2023 he questioned the public saying “How many of you are aware that they have sold 2.5 acres of prime land along the Castries Waterfront at a heavily discounted rate to a Labour Party comrade? Why wasn’t the deal publicly announced? Where in the world have you ever heard of a property being worth half of what it was worth 10 years ago? We need answers!”
Fredrick says an investigation was launched and it was made known that at the registry there is no Parcel that exists as Parcel 11. He says Parcel 11 was a combination of two properties and has been subdivided into two, Parcel 50 and 51 since nine years ago.
He says Allen Chastnet deceitfully took the valuation for the properties combined and purported it to have been the valuation of one property.
“We commenced our investigations, at the registry there is no parcel at this point known as parcel 11. Parcel 11 which is the valuation which Allen Chasatnet showed is no longer in existence and I’ll tell you what it is. Parcel 11 was a combination of parcels 50 and 51 which currently exist in 2014 what is called a mutation or it is called a subdivision was done. This made parcel 11 no longer existent, and it grew to two parcels 50 and 51.
What Allen Chastanet deceitfully did was he took the valuation for the combined parcels when they were together known as combined parcels and he purported this to have been the valuation of parcel 50 which was essentially a subset of parcel 11. It’s been nine years parcel 11 has not been in existence.” the minister informed.
Fredrick says everything that has been posted and said has been premised on a lie and the actions by the opposition leader were fraudulent, deceitful, dishonest and reprehensible.
He says an apology is due to the country for an attempt to deceive them.
“So all the videos, all the allegations, the scandal and everything else was premised on a lie. His actions in my view were fraudulent, his actions were deceitful, his actions were dishonest, not to mention reprehensible. And I’m calling on the leader of the opposition to issue an apology to the people of this country whom he quite glaringly attempted to deceive.” he stated.
Photo: Media Stock
