…says Board will be fully constituted after Amendment Bill passed in June
Nominees for the Governing Board of the Deeds and Commercial Registry Authority have been identified and have been submitted to Cabinet for its approval of their appointments.
This is according to a release form the Attorney General’s Chambers which outlined that the persons nominated include “Ms. Christine Mc Gowan as Chairman, Ms Zana Frank Deputy Registrar of Deeds; Ms Nicole Prince Registrar of the Commercial Registry; Ms Gillian Pollard from the Ministry of Finance, Ms. Aretha Henry from the Ministry of Communities, Ms Sharon Small a nominee from the Guyana Bar Association, Mr Kumar Dorasami from the Guyana Association of Legal Practitioners and Major General (Rtd) Norman Mc Clean the Private Sector’s nominee. The other three representatives await the passage of the Bill and include the representatives from the Ministry of Business, the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Chief Valuation officer. The previous Chairman was not reappointed as she is no longer a Compliance officer at a local Bank.”
Moreover the release states that the last board expired in May 2016 and the delay in constituting a new board was solely as a result of the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority (Amendment) Bill 2017 being laid before parliament.
“The board will be fully constituted after the Bill is passed in the National Assembly on June 15 2017” said the release.
Contempt of Court
The release from the AG Chambers comes on the heels of remarks by former Attorney General and Opposition Member of Parliament, Anil Nandlall that he will be filing legal proceedings at the High Court sometime this week, against Attorney General, Basil Williams, SC, for failing to comply with a court order, demanding that he appoint a Governing Board at the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority.
“This week, contempt of Court proceedings will be filed against him, in which the High Court will be asked to commit him to Camp Street Prison for failing to obey the order.”
Nandlall in a strongly worded statement explained that back in 2015, Williams had ‘blatantly refused’ to appoint the Governing board, which was in violation of the law.
“…in the absence of that board, he has been engaging in all manners of malicious manipulation in order to get rid of the people he doesn’t like. Therefore, you have trumped up charges and baseless allegations being laid against people whom he wishes to destroy. This Minister is prepared to destroy reputations, destroy people’s profession and destroy people’s careers in order to achieve his objectives” said Nandlall.
The PPP Parliamentarian said that on April 19 2017, he approached the High Court and obtained an order by the High Court Judge instructing that Williams appoint the Governing Board of the Authority.
According to Nandlall, “to date, he has refused to do so. That order was served to him by a Marshal of the High Court. In addition, my lawyers wrote him a letter enclosed with the order, demanding that he complies with it. Again, he has refused to do so. Therefore, he is in contempt of court.”
The Board is an independent body established to promote the proper and efficient performance of the functions of the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority.
Nandlall had posited that “the whole purpose of enacting the Deeds and Commercial Registry Authority Act was to make the body regulated by a Board and not subjected to political interference and direction by a Minister.”
The Board is expected to operate for a period of two years.
