Ke­jan Haynes

& Shane Su­perville

Res­i­dents of Ram­jat­tan Trace, La Hor­quet­ta say they feel aban­doned by the same politi­cians who come to them for votes.

Speak­ing to the me­dia yes­ter­day, one day af­ter of­fi­cials from the Land Set­tle­ment Agency, Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) de­mol­ished 12 homes in their com­mu­ni­ty, la­belled a squat­ter set­tle­ment, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP Fos­ter Cum­mings dis­tanced him­self from the sit­u­a­tion.

Ap­proached for a com­ment on the La Hor­quet­ta de­mo­li­tion ex­er­cise at the un­veil­ing of the City Heights Hous­ing Com­plex in Co­coyea, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day, Cum­mings said, “In this beau­ti­ful City Heights in San Fer­nan­do, this is the type of de­vel­op­ment we want to see—or­gan­ised de­vel­op­ment—and that is what we are talk­ing about here to­day.”

Pressed fur­ther, Cum­mings said, “Did you speak with the HDC? From what I saw, the HDC is en­gaged in an ex­er­cise to reg­u­larise a sit­u­a­tion with state land, and that is a mat­ter for the HDC to deal with, not the MP.”

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is al­so de­fend­ed the move as part of a broad­er ef­fort to com­bat squat­ting and the il­le­gal sale of state land.

Robin­son-Reg­is said, “We have seen an ex­plo­sion of squat­ting, and even peo­ple who have de­cid­ed they can sell state land. They are squat lords. They don’t own the land, but they are sell­ing it.”

At Ram­jat­tan Trace yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, res­i­dents re­spond­ed an­gri­ly to Cum­mings’ state­ments.

“He’s a man walk through in the back here, promise to build road, he walked about here with us, we have pic­tures with him!” said Ann Marie Dalips­ingh.

“We tried to get a meet­ing with him, he block, he block, he block,” one res­i­dent yelled.

“He promised us cur­rent and wa­ter!” an­oth­er yelled.

They con­tin­ued to main­tain that the evic­tion let­ters sent to them were not clear­ly marked by any agency, and they nev­er knew to whom they could plead their case.

“You hear him say ask HDC, and when we went to the HDC they say they have noth­ing to do with that!” the res­i­dent yelled.

They showed Guardian Me­dia an In­sta­gram post from March, 2024, when Cum­mings had a walk­a­bout in their area. The cap­tion read, “On Sat­ur­day 9th March 2024, I spent the morn­ing with some of my con­stituents of Ram­jat­tan Trace, Tumpuna Road South. The con­cerns are many as with most un­planned de­vel­op­ments. I was ac­com­pa­nied by coun­cil­lor Ker­ry Ann Kas­mal­ly, Maria Bap­tiste who rep­re­sent­ed the Land Set­tle­ment Agency and al­der­man Leon Roach. The res­i­dents were very vo­cal about their con­cerns and we will be re­turn­ing soon with oth­er agen­cies who can bring some re­lief.”

In an­oth­er in­ter­view yes­ter­day, this time at a cheque dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny for the Agri­cul­tur­al Fi­nance Sup­port Pro­gramme (Agro-In­cen­tive Grant), Cum­mings said while it was heart­break­ing that per­sons are be­ing evict­ed, the law is the law. He urged all peo­ple liv­ing on land il­le­gal­ly to ap­ply for land own­er­ship through the prop­er chan­nels.

Af­ter the ex­ca­va­tors left on Thurs­day, some res­i­dents stayed with rel­a­tives overnight but those with­out al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion hasti­ly re­built makeshift struc­tures, which shel­tered as many as six to ten peo­ple.

Daniel Car­dinez showed Guardian Me­dia the makeshift homes made of ply­board and gal­vanise.

“Peo­ple had to sleep in this lit­tle house, and this one here that we had to build back with left­over ma­te­r­i­al. Be­cause peo­ple have nowhere to sleep. Where we go­ing to sleep? You see peo­ple things get­ting wet in the rain. Where are we sup­posed to go now?” he asked.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed that UNC le­gal of­fi­cer, at­tor­ney Bri­an Baig, who re­cent­ly screened for the Ch­agua­nas West and Na­pari­ma seats, vis­it­ed the area and will rep­re­sent the af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

“We met some per­sons who may have been there for more than 30-some­thing years, so they may have a right to be there,” Baig said.

“But again, a ques­tion to ask is who has the au­thor­i­ty to break down those homes. We are cur­rent­ly still get­ting in­for­ma­tion, get­ting in­struc­tions and we shall act ac­cord­ing­ly.”

Two men ar­rest­ed dur­ing the de­mo­li­tion ex­er­cise were charged with ob­scene lan­guage and re­sist­ing ar­rest. They spent the night in po­lice cus­tody be­fore be­ing re­leased yes­ter­day.