Month: December 2013

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BREAKING NEWS

STATEMENT OF DR CEM KINAY WITH RESPECT TO THE JOE GRANT SALE.THE TRUTH.

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Statement of Dr Cem Kinay with respect to the Joe Grant Cay’s Sale

Istanbul, Turkey 18 December 2013

I understand from Turks and Caicos Islands media sources that a 200 acre parcel of Joe Grant Cay has been sold for $4.04m in October 2013 in a transaction that was never made public.

I was sure that one day, the truth about Joe Grant Cay’s true value will come to the light, Today, is my day. For the past 6 years, I have been living stripped of my basic human rights and assets just because the TCI Courts have concluded in connection with a political donation made to Michael Misick on 9 January 2007 “there to be a very strong probability that the money was paid as a bribe in order to ensure that the Defendant companies obtained the benefit of the proposed (Joe Grant Cay) development” disregarding the fact that there was in reality no benefit at all, as we have paid the true and accurate value of this land which was USD 3.2 million for the same 200 acres parcel back in 2008.

More specifically, on the matter of Joe Grant Cay’s valuation, His Hon Justice completely ignored the Government’s valuation report obtained from BCQS, an independent commercial appraiser who valued 200 acres parcel of Joe Grant Cay, at USD 3.2 million for commercial use, exactly the amount of money asked by the Government in June 2008, which my development companies have paid in full.

What is more astonishing was the fact that His Hon Judge ruled (Para 36, The Judgement) ‘When instructing BCQS to give an alternative valuation, McAllister Hanchell did not tell them of the proposed development, so that their valuation made no allowance for the intended use of the land.’. The Learned Chief Justice has failed to recognize that BCQS valuation report specifically stated on Page 7 Item 3.5 ‘It is assumed that planning permission is available for the subdivision of the land for residential plots or for a commercial use.’ By omitting BCQS’s clear statement specifying “commercial use” in its report, The Hon. Chief Justice violated our right to a fair trial, and unfairly favored the Turks and Caicos Islands Government by omitting what the true valuation report states. Instead, the Hon. Chief Justice relied on a series of valuation reports prepared by the Turks and Caicos Island’s own employee Mr. Hoza, which are at best confused. Mr. Hoza’s valuation reports valued the 200 acre parcel at a whopping 45 million for commercial use!

For those who doubt that the Development of Joe Grant Cay is not innocent, I have only one question: We have paid 3.2 million in 2008 for this 200 acre land, and today, 6 years later, the same land has been sold for 4.04 million in an open market transaction ! I ask you what happened to the alleged tens of millions of dollars that the Government and some of our opponents claimed that this land was supposed to be worth?

I have the answer: The alleged valuation of this island was a big lie ! Joe Grant Cay’s 200 acre was never valued more than what we paid for. That was the exact reason why many internationally repute valuation companies as well as all the local valuation companies have valued it at the exact value that we paid for it. That is why both Hon. Governor Tauwhare, and later on Hon. Governor Whetherell have approved and executed the sale of this 200 Acre land to us for USD 3.2 million, and that was why the sale was approved by the Attorney General, TCI Invest, Ministers, and the Premier.

In fact, there was no “favor” from anyone for Joe Grant Cay. In fact, we have paid the true value of this land, and the shameless dark forces took away from us alleging the “undervalue” sale. The evidence is before you, the same land is now sold for USD 4.04 million after 6 years.

In the past five years, I have been victimized by politics. My assets were frozen and hundreds of people lost their jobs. I could have developed Joe Grant Cay and create much needed jobs, and further tourism income for Turks and Caicos Islands. I was denied my fundamental right to a fair trial in TCI, a red notice application has been filed with the Interpol for my arrest. I am calling upon the TCI Government and the Attorney General to end these groundless accusations against me, return my assets, and clear my name as I have done nothing wrong.

God Bless

Categories
News

Joe Grant Cay Land Sells For $4m

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Joe Grant Cay Land Sells For $4m

Joe Grant Cay is home to 18th century ruins, a protected harbour and some of the country’s finest vistas
A LARGE plot of Crown land on the remote island of Joe Grant Cay was sold for $4.04m in October in a transaction that was never made public, the Weekly News can reveal.

This week Sotheby’s, the real estate company dealing with the sale, told the newspaper that a commercial developer purchased the 200 acre plot – once valued at $50 million – months ago.

TCI mortgage providers Temple Financial Group pushed through the sale of the land in order to recoup millions of dollars in outstanding Government debts.

The debt was originally created five years ago when the company awarded a $2.4 million mortgage to a prominent developer to purchase the sizable plot on the cay.

But he was later accused of corruption and following a lengthy civil recovery case the Government took back possession of the land – along with responsibility for the mortgage and the growing interest.

Temple gave the Government an opportunity to sell the land themselves to repay the debt and it was advertised on the Sotheby’s website for sale at $6.9 million.

But after a year and a half without a bite the company obtained ‘power of sale’ and finally offloaded the land for $2.8 million below its advertised price.

Power of sale gives the creditor the authority, upon default in the payment of a debt, to advertise and sell the property at public auction, without resorting to a court for authorisation.

Following a request for information, Sotheby’s broker Joe Zahm sent the Weekly News an email that explained: “Lot 25 ONLY sold for $4,040,000 in October. The rest of the island remains in TCIG control.”

The cash will pay off the Government’s debt with Temple Financial Group and any remaining will be put into the Government’s coffers.

However it is currently uncertain how much interest the mortgage accrued and if there is likely to be any money left over from the payment.

Minister of Finance Washington Misick told the Weekly News on Thursday (December 12) that he had not been briefed on the sale.

He explained that just months ago Temple Mortgage would have obtained “power of sale”.

But Misick added that he was unaware of any further details including whether the $4.04 million was more or less than the amount owed to Temple.

Meanwhile when asked why the transaction was not made public Premier Rufus Ewing on Thursday told the newspaper that the sale had “nothing to do with” the Government.

“A great portion of Joe Grant Cay is still owned by Government but the part sold is not a part of the Crown land there,” he said.

The development of remote Joe Grant Cay, located just east of Middle Caicos, was announced in mid-2008, shortly before the worldwide recession tightened its grip on the Islands.

Home to 18th century ruins, a protected harbour and some of the country’s finest vistas, the 710-acre cay was tipped to provide abundant job opportunities for local residents.

However Turkish-born developer Cem Kinay, who also headed the massive development at Dellis Cay, attracted a wealth of scrutiny during the 2008 Commission of Inquiry.

It was claimed that he purchased Joe Grant Cay for $7.7 million after it was valued at $178 million in June 2008.

This followed the payment of a $500,000 political donation to the PNP just a year earlier.

On June 24, 2010, the development agreement between the Kinay’s Star Platinum firms and the Government was terminated.

And that July civil recovery lawyers fought to have land on the tiny cay returned to the Crown along with damages and costs.

After initially filing a full defence, the Star Platinum companies then defaulted on court orders.

They were asked to provide further and better particulars of their defence, but did not do so in time, and the defence was struck out.

As a result, the Government opted for trial by evidence or admissions which took place in June 2011 at Providenciales Supreme Court.

Following lengthy civil recovery proceedings the recently resigned Attorney General Huw Shepheard released his judgement in TCI’s first major civil recovery case.

He said that there was “no satisfactory explanation” for a $500,000 political donation made by Dr Kinay to former Premier Michael Misick on January 9, 2007.

The judge added that there was “a very strong probability that the money was paid as a bribe in order to ensure that the defendant companies obtained the benefit of the proposed development”.

However, because the defendant did not show up to court to offer his evidence, Shepheard stressed that “nobody should be declared corrupt”.

Dr Kinay – bestowed with Belonger status by Misick’s former Government – has always denied allegations of corruption.

He also previously vowed to recoup all losses incurred by his firms as a result of the civil recovery team’s work.

The court ordered the return of the whole of Joe Grant Cay previously bought for $7.7 million to the TCI Government.

However one 200 acre parcel of land, which Kinay bought for just $3.2 million, was subject to a charge in favour of Temple Financial Group.

Star Platinum companies had borrowed $2.4 million from the company’s operating division Temple Mortgage and granted it a charge over the land as security.

TCIG “reluctantly concluded” that it had no choice but to sell the parcel of land in order to pay off what was owed.

In May 2012 Sothebys, instructed to act for the Government, placed parcel 30101/25 on the market for sale.

Earlier this year Temple forced through the sale of the land in order to repay the Government’s outstanding debts.

David Knight, chief executive officer of Temple Financial Group, was unavailable for comment .
Published in TCI Weekly News

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Categories
News

JOE GRANT SCANDAL IN TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS

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The below article ,published in June 2012 in SUN

By Royal S. Robinson, MBE
The Interim Administration continues to try to have its cake and eat it as well as to operate in a very non-transparent way. When you take into consideration the premise on which they took over the country from the duly elected local representatives, the actions so far have not been to show you how best to get the job done, but how best to carry on the process by which cronyism is the hallmark of the day and picking winners of your own choosing is the best was in which to do business.
The British Government, FOC, DFID, SIPT and the Civil Recovery team declared that the original sale of land by the TCI government to Platinum was a corrupt transaction and as such should be recovered and redound to the benefit of the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Steps were taken through the Court system to have the land returned to the Crown and the court agreed that the land should be returned. No sooner than this exercise was completed (Platinum seem not to take an interest in appealing the court’s decision), there seems to be a concerted effort being made to now ensure that the Turks and Caicos Islands’ people do not benefit effective from the return of that land.
The first part of the deception and deceit started with the decision to sell the land to satisfy a mortgage that had been placed on the property by Temple as a result of Platinum borrowing some $2M and using the property as collateral. My understanding of the legal system is that if a leaf of the fig tree is tainted, then the whole tree is tainted. As it relates to this particular transaction, if it was corrupt for Platinum to obtain the land in the first instance, then any subsequent transaction had to be corrupt also.
So why was there a rush on behalf of the Interim Administration to satisfy Temple Mortgage? There can be one inference to be drawn and that is that someone in the Administration or very close to the Administration had something to be gained by the sale of the land by the government to satisfy the debt to Temple!
According to all previous pronouncements by the Interim Administration, all of the land that had been reacquired as a result of some fraudulent activity would be kept in the land bank for future generations to benefit from. So what is the real rush to dispose of this land at this time? Something smells fishy here.
Now in the proper scheme of things, if the Interim Administration had a real reason to dispose of the land for the benefit of the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands, the first thing it should have done was to specifically say so. Following on from that, it should have issued a Request for Proposals. If as they like to claim they are operating in an open and transparent manner, and they want to get the best value for money, that is what would have happen. But they have decided to pick winners from “their side of the ledger”. What is that called? Is it Insider trading? Or is it nepotism? I thought those were the common faults and flaws identified by Sir Robin Auld as being part of the systemic weakness and corruption in the previous political administration that had to be rooted out. But like Courtney Missick likes to say, corruption has only changed its colour, from black to white!
Now let us look at the local firm that got to market and sell the 200 acres of land on Joe Grant Cay. It is Sotheby’s and its local affiliate is Connolly-Zahm! Is it just coincidental that one of the principals of Connolly-Zahm if Mrs. Josephine Connolly, the wife of Advisory Council member Joseph (Joe) Connolly? As Ernie Clarke likes to say “I have the documents”. I will definitely like to see the documents showing that there is no nexus at all!
The old Finance and Audit Ordinance and Financial Instructions, followed by the now brand new Public Finance Management Ordinance, all speak to a transparent process with respect to the procurement of services by government.
As I have indicated before, there should have been a tendering process set up and the firm with the best proposal selected to carry out the work. The worst case scenario would have been to short-list say six of the local real estate firm that have international connections and ask them to submit proposals, I could live with that. I would have thought that that would have given me some piece of mind that I would have been getting value for money.
What I still cannot fathom is how the governor fixed his mouth to call the initial land transaction of Joe Grant cay corrupt and it had to be returned to the people, but no sooner was that done, he is out there secretly trying to sell that asset. Something untoward must be afoot here. I just cannot for the life of me understand the amount of double standard that is being used by this Interim Administration, save to say that a concerted effort is being made dispose of everything of value that belong to us, in a manner that they feel and say that it is in our best interest so to do.
I have never seen so many thing done in my best interest, that am totally opposed to as is happening with these bumbling idiots at the helm. As time progresses, everyone is seeing that the Emperor has on no clothes and is operating in a clueless manner.
How the Interim Administration hopes to be able to get away with such blatant disregards for the rules that they say they came here specifically to enforce and demonstrate the ethics of doing things in the proper manner?
However, what they have and are demonstrating to us is that what we were doing was child’s play and they are certainly showing us how bad business should operate. That does not give us faith and comfort in these operators. That is why on the streets there is now total skepticism as to the real reason the intervention took place.
We must by now be in a position to determine for ourselves that what is currently being done to us is neither right nor fair! The reset button has now been pushed by the setting of the date for elections. We should all go out and get registered so that we can send a clear and unambiguous message to the Interim Administration that business as usual will not be the order of the day. Joe Grant Cay has not been sold as yet and it is not too late to restart the process on a proper footing.
There cannot be a rush as there is a surplus budget proposed, so the money from the sale is not critical to our financial position except that the Interim Administration is hell bent of getting from under the loan guarantee as quickly as possible and to hell with whatever adverse consequence to the Turks and Caicos Islands people!

published in Sun TCI