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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Increased land grabbing during pandemic

by

1846 days ago
20200629
 Businessman Ajit Moonesar, also known as Omardath Ramcharan, looks at the structure he built on State lands which was demolished in May.

Businessman Ajit Moonesar, also known as Omardath Ramcharan, looks at the structure he built on State lands which was demolished in May.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Dur­ing the time Gov­ern­ment has been try­ing to keep COVID-19 at bay, land grab­bers have used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take over state lands in more than 17 ar­eas across the coun­try.

Some have been work­ing in the dead of night to set up il­le­gal struc­tures.

Chair­man of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) Oss­ley Fran­cis re­cent­ly ap­pealed to the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to take ac­tion. How­ev­er, In­spec­tor in the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (OC­SL) Ty­rone Ra­mad­hin said they need equip­ment, ad­di­tion­al man­pow­er and po­lice pro­tec­tion as some of the squat­ters have links with crim­i­nal gangs.

He said of­ten when the OC­SL takes of­fend­ers to court, the cas­es fell apart.

“More than 200 cas­es in­volv­ing the State and il­le­gal land oc­cu­piers were dis­missed last year alone be­cause of a lack of le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the part of the state,” he said.

While the Gov­ern­ment is try­ing to build a data­base on land own­er­ship, land grab­bing has es­ca­lat­ed. Squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties have sprout­ed up along Pa­pourie Road in Es­per­ance and off Gol­con­da Road. Trees have been cut down and land blocked off with co­conut trees.

Squatters have occupied lands near  the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension  at Diamond Village

Squatters have occupied lands near the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension at Diamond Village

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Along Fac­to­ry Road, Ch­agua­nas, more than 100 acres of Ca­roni land has been cleared for farm­ing. Ba­nana and co­conut trees have been plant­ed by the land grab­bers to de­mar­cate bound­aries.

A squat­ting set­tle­ment at Rail­way Road, Savonet­ta, lo­cat­ed be­hind the Cou­va Fire Sta­tion, has been ex­pand­ing and sev­er­al new struc­tures have been erect­ed along the old train line near the Pic­ton Pres­by­ter­ian School. Along the M2 and M1 Ring Road, unau­tho­rised cul­ti­va­tion has been tak­ing place on Ca­roni lands. Land­grab­bers have al­so oc­cu­pied acreages on Hill­top Av­enue and Spring­vale in Clax­ton Bay.

Near the Debe cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, busi­ness­man Ajit Moone­sar has built a road, erect­ed a bar­ri­er, back­filled and ex­ca­vat­ed a wa­ter­course al­though he has been served with a le­gal no­tice to de­sist.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors have al­so caught oth­er busi­ness­peo­ple il­le­gal­ly claim­ing own­er­ship of valu­able lands near the cam­pus.

Ra­mad­hin and his team have de­mol­ished il­le­gal struc­tures put up by Moone­sar and stopped more than 30 squat­ters from build­ing struc­tures at Cedar Hill Road, Clax­ton Bay. How­ev­er, many oth­er breach­es have gone un­pun­ished be­cause of short­ages of man­pow­er and equip­ment.

Land being cultivated by a squatter near the UWI Campus in Debe.

Land being cultivated by a squatter near the UWI Campus in Debe.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Ra­mad­hin said in the 1990s there was a vi­brant An­ti-Squat­ting Unit which car­ried out de­mo­li­tions re­sult­ing in a re­duc­tion in squat­ting.

“This was a spe­cial team com­pris­ing of po­lice of­fi­cers and they would do pa­trols to make sure that peo­ple did not squat on state lands,” he said.

Since the dis­band­ing of that unit, squat­ting has es­ca­lat­ed. At one point there were dis­cus­sions with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) about bring­ing back that unit but it is still to off the ground.

For­mer pres­i­dent of the de­funct Trinidad Is­land­wide Cane Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, news­pa­per colum­nist Raf­fique Shah raised con­cerns last year about the “mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar rack­et in­volv­ing state lands, that fall un­der Ca­roni Ltd, Petrotrin and the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA).”

He said Ca­roni owned more than 70,000 acres of land, Petrotrin owned 25,000 acres and 15,000 acres fell un­der the purview of the CDA.

“Gov­ern­ment is hard­ly in a po­si­tion to re­cov­er any of the il­le­gal­ly-oc­cu­pied lands, es­pe­cial­ly those that have struc­tures rang­ing from sol­id con­crete hous­es to large com­mer­cial build­ings and in few in­stances, plants and ma­chin­ery for in­dus­tri­al pur­pos­es.

“It makes sense, there­fore, to sell them, with first op­tions go­ing to the oc­cu­piers. If they do not have the means to pur­chase the prop­er­ties, then of­fer them to the pub­lic,” Shah rec­om­mend­ed.

Illegal structures  on Caroni lands  off Papourie Road, near Harrypaul Village.

Illegal structures on Caroni lands off Papourie Road, near Harrypaul Village.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Ramdeo Boon­doo, a farmer, said if a prop­er sur­veil­lance team had been in place, squat­ting would not have es­ca­lat­ed to the ex­tent that it has.

“We have gen­uine farm­ers who are squat­ting and these peo­ple should not be vic­timised. They should be giv­en tem­po­rary leas­es as they con­tribute to the food bas­ket but in cas­es where peo­ple are block­ing land and form­ing squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties, we have to nip that in the bud,” he said.

Boon­doo said squat­ters have been mov­ing in along Rail­way Road, Palmiste, and there has been an in­crease in crime in near­by com­mu­ni­ties. For­mer CEO of Ca­roni Green Ltd (CGL) Shar­ma Lal­la said seiz­ing prop­er­ties and sell­ing them on the open mar­ket may not be the best op­tion. He pro­posed that the gov­ern­ment im­me­di­ate­ly move to stop the il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of all state land.

“The on­ly way to deal with these il­le­gal oc­cu­pants is to en­force the law. If the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has to cre­ate a new unit like he is do­ing for so many things, we will be able to stop peo­ple from land grab­bing. The unit has to be prop­er­ly equipped and giv­en ad­e­quate re­sources as well as the rel­e­vant doc­u­men­ta­tion from the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands,” he said.

Lal­la said he is very dis­ap­point­ed at the ex­ploita­tion of Ca­roni’s vast agri­cul­tur­al lands which could be put to pro­duc­tive use.

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Clarence Ramb­harat agreed that squat­ting has been an is­sue for more than 50 years. He said he has re­port­ed vi­o­la­tions to the Com­mis­sion­er of State lands on­ly to see the vi­o­la­tors erect struc­tures a year lat­er.

Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein said mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers will be out in full force mak­ing sure that peo­ple abide by the law.

Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Allen Sam­my said cor­po­ra­tion per­son­nel are will­ing to as­sist the OC­SL with equip­ment as long as a for­mal writ­ten re­quest is made. He said along Welling­ton Road, the strip of land op­po­site the cam­pus which has been claimed by land grab­bers should be re­claimed by the state and made in­to a com­mu­ni­ty park.


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