Jon Llewellyn, the British adviser who was brought in to assist the Turks and Caicos Islands Land registry computerize the land records, is now chasing land leases with a total of $3 million in default and is now promising new rules for Crown land sales. Llewellyn organized the systematic logging of all land ownership records, which are now available online, providing access to the ownership status of all TCI Crown land. The principal discovery Llewellyn has made public was that the previous government—led by Michael Misick (with Hanchell as cabinet Minister, responsible for public land)—had sold off most of the territory’s thousands of acres of Crown land. See excerpts with links to the full articles below:

[. . .] In fiscal year April 1, 2006/March 31, 2007, Crown land sales swelled to $55 million and, in the following year ending March 31, 2008, sales reached an astonishing $58 million. Now it appears this figure (provided in the government budget reports) was seriously understated. The record sales reported appears to be a reflection of activities by Misick’s government prior to the 2007 election, when they encouraged people to apply for land. In numerous case

s, land leases were passed out to prospective supporters without applications being made by the applicants themselves.

The understatement of $58 million has been revealed in recent weeks by two land flip deals dug out by the Civil Recovery Team, who have indicated that in two cases alone nearly $3 million in Crown land sales to non belongers were facilitated by flips in this period. It is unknown how many of these flips occurred but, during the Commission of Inquiry conducted in the first quarter of 2009, two other flips were revealed. These involved two former ministers, Lillian Boyce and Jeffrey Hall. These flips also amounted to a total of about $3 million.

For full article, see http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Turks-and-Caicos-Crown-land-sales-indicate-manipulation-of-policies-4155.html

For Part II of this article, see http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Turks-and-Caicos-Crown-land-policy-to-be-reformed-after-massive-abuse-4168.html