RAD­HI­CA 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

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.

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.

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.