Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal has denied allegations by Sheep and Goat Farmers Association president Shiraz Khan that the Government is seeking to voter pad by putting houses on agricultural land.Moonilal said the sites in contention at Pineapple Smith lands, D'Abadie and Egypt Village, Chaguanas, were selected long before the People's Partnership (PP) Government came into power.According to newspaper reports yesterday, some 19 farmers at the centre of the controversy were standing in the way of the construction of Housing Development Corporation (HDC) homes that could house 7,104 people.Khan is contending that the Pineapple Smith lands fall into the D'Abadie/Omeara constituency which he said Sport Minister Anil Roberts won by about 1,000 votes and which was marginal.He said Egypt Village fell into Chaguanas East, another marginal formerly held by the PNM, but won by the PP's Stephen Cadiz in the 2010 general election.Moonilal, responding to questions from the T&T Guardian, said via a text message yesterday: "The selection of the site at Egypt was done in 2005 and at D'Abadie in 2008.
"So it (allegations of voter padding) could not have been our objective."Asked if voter padding in the marginal seats could have been an objective of previous PNM regimes, the minister replied: "Maybe. But is not our objective since we met those sites in advanced stages of planning."Moonilal said the ministry's next meeting with farmers had been set for Thursday.He said farmers were to report on the quantum for compensation for the lands they occupied by next Monday.Khan, also vice-president of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (Fitun), insisted yesterday that the real issue behind the farmers/ HDC row was voter padding.
"It's all about voter padding," he said."The Government is doing the same thing they accused the PNM of doing."Khan said there were 400 houses at Carlsen Field in Central and other areas which were unoccupied."The Government wants to build houses in certain constituencies," he charged.Khan and president of the National Foodcrop Farmers Association, Terrence Haywood, said they were not backing down from their stand that agricultural lands must be kept for agriculture."Food first...Farmers are only occupying small pieces of agricultural land," Haywood said.
"When countries from which we import food start holding back their products for themselves, what will become of us?" Haywood said they were demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, and if the land was not kept for agriculture, they would take the matter to court.Khan denied Housing Development Corporation (HDC) managing director Jearlean John's statement that the farmers were occupying the State lands illegally."Farmers' leases expired 30 years ago and the State never renewed them, but they have been paying taxes," he said."In fact, the farmers have already paid taxes for up to December 31, 2011."John said the two basic needs of food and shelter needed to be balanced."Land is a finite resource...You just have so much of it," said John.She urged farmers to sit down and talk over the matter with Moonilal who, she said, has not shut the door on them.