Govt refuses to renew cash-jet pilot’s CJIA hangar lease

Last Updated on Thursday, 31 December 2015, 16:07 by Denis Chabrol

The Guyana government has taken possession of a hangar at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport after the lease to Guyanese cash-jet pilot, Khamraj Lall, expired.

Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson said Lall’s representatives had written to the Attorney General, Basil Williams claiming that they still had a stake in the property but was told that the clear condition on the lease is that once it expired the State could repossess the property.

Following the expiration of the lease on October 15, 2015,  he said authorities wrote the principals advising them of the status of the arrangement. “We wrote in accordance with the lease advising them that we will have no intention of renewing the lease and they were free to remove any move-able objects and properties that they would have,” he said when asked by Demerara Waves Online News.

The Public Infrastructure Minister said ExecJet Club representatives have told the Attorney General that government could not terminate the lease because of the millions of dollars that have been spent on constructing the hangar.

As far as Patterson was concerned, that process has now marked the end of an executive jet hangar at the CJIA but the final decision would be made by the airport’s board when it is appointed. “I for one don’t see us having any use for a luxury hangar anymore,” he said.

The Minister noted that the CJIA could make a lot of money in facilitating the arrival and departure of cargo.

Pilot Lall was arrested on November 22, 2014 in Puerto Rico during a routine technical stop after a search of the aircraft by federal agents yielded a total of US$620,000.

In July, 2015 he was charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine and importation of cocaine into the United States.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Marangola, who is handling the case, said that according to the indictment, between December 2013 and February 10, 2015, the defendant conspired to bring more than five kilograms of cocaine from Guyana into the United States.

Lall is a pilot and is accused of transporting the cocaine on his flights from Guyana to the United States.