In 2004 the then PNM gov­ern­ment took the plunge and shut down Ca­roni Ltd, putting thou­sands of sug­ar work­ers on the bread­line.Promis­es were made about pro­vid­ing hous­ing and agri­cul­tur­al plots for the dis­placed work­ers.Tens of mil­lions of dol­lars were spent on site clear­ing, prepa­ra­tion and in­fra­struc­ture in­clud­ing roads and drainage and util­i­ties.Near­ly ten years lat­er, cit­i­zens dri­ving through any of the for­mer sug­ar ar­eas can iden­ti­fy these sites by the aban­doned roads and sew­er pipes stick­ing up in the air look­ing lost and for­lorn.

The Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment took of­fice with the promise that they would give pri­or­i­ty to com­plet­ing this project.For­mer work­ers were in­vit­ed to vis­it the of­fices to iden­ti­fy their pre­ferred lo­ca­tions and to make de­posits on the prop­er­ties.They were sub­se­quent­ly called in to make fi­nal pay­ments on the hous­ing plots which they ea­ger­ly did in the ex­pec­ta­tion that they would soon be giv­en their hous­ing sites.

Three years lat­er in­to the Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment they are still wait­ing to take pos­ses­sion of their promised lands, un­able to do any­thing but wait in hope.Many of these peo­ple have been pay­ing rent for years or liv­ing with their par­ents while wait­ing to take pos­ses­sion of their hous­ing plots.

Af­ter say­ing while in Op­po­si­tion that sug­ar work­ers would pre­fer the land to al­low them to build to their pref­er­ence when they could af­ford it, the Min­is­ter of Hous­ing now talks about build­ing hous­es for them.When is the gov­ern­ment go­ing to meet its promis­es to the for­mer Ca­roni Ltd work­ers?

Karan Ma­habirs­ingh

Cara­pichaima