I call the Gov­ern­ment's at­ten­tion to the un­told pres­sures To­ba-go­ni­ans are fac­ing to have lands left by dead rel­a­tives for many years trans­ferred to their names. My grand­moth­er, who raised me from a ba­by, died in June 1947 (64 years ago). Since then I have paid all the land tax­es and have been try­ing at the same time to have the land trans­ferred to my name but with­out suc­cess. I am the on­ly sur­viv­ing rel­a­tive as my grand­fa­ther died be­fore she did and they had one son who died short­ly af­ter my grand­moth­er. I sought le­gal ad­vice and I was told by one lawyer that I have to get three peo­ple from the area who can pre­pare an af­fi­davit stat­ing that I am the on­ly pos­si­ble ben­e­fi­cia­ry to the lands. I did this and re­turned to the lawyer, on­ly to be told that I have to pay an ex­or­bi­tant fee to have a search done on the lands.

I sought a sec­ond opin­ion from an­oth­er lawyer and was told that I first have to get the land sur­veyed in or­der to get a deed. A sur­vey­or who told me it will cost $23,000 to have the land sur­veyed. Why must cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to un­der­go such hard­ship? I slaved on these lands as a boy and now I am a se­nior cit­i­zen I still have to be fight­ing for what I con­sid­er to be right­ly mine. Can this car­ing Gov-ern­ment please do some­thing to al­le­vi­ate these woes? Please do not leave us to the whims and fan­cies of un­scrupu­lous lawyers. En-act leg­is­la­tion to as­sist peo­ple in my sit­u­a­tion.

Alexan­der James

To­ba­go