Kali­fa Clyne

Nei­ther the Fore­shore, In­vaders Bay nor the lands the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) are at­tempt­ing to take own­er­ship of in Co­corite can be de­vel­oped with­out con­sul­ta­tion and ap­proval of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion. This was the stand tak­en by Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing dur­ing a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at City Hall. Lee Sing called the con­fer­ence to speak on the is­sue on con­tro­ver­sial lands sit­u­at­ed in West­moor­ings, Co­corite, where WASA owns sev­er­al wells. WASA had re­leased a state­ment on Sat­ur­day claim­ing own­er­ship and sole re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the lands un­der the WASA Act of 1965.

Lee Sing, how­ev­er, ar­gued that "hav­ing a few wells" on the land did not give WASA own­er­ship of the en­tire prop­er­ty. "WASA has wells in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah and King George V Park, why do they not claim own­er­ship of those lands?" asked Lee Sing. Lee Sing main­tained that the land in ques­tion be­longed to the city of Port-of-Spain and as such could not just be giv­en to WASA. If WASA con­tin­ued on its cur­rent path, Lee Sing said:, "this is still a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety and the courts still hold su­prema­cy to Par­lia­ment." Lee Sing al­so ques­tioned WASA's state­ment on the num­ber of acres on the prop­er­ty. WASA, in its re­lease, had claimed the par­cel of land con­tained 23 acres. Lee Sing dis­put­ed this fig­ure, claim­ing that the pub­lic record at the City Cor­po­ra­tion stat­ed that the prop­er­ty held 33 acres.

"Where is the miss­ing ten acres?" asked Lee Sing. Lee Sing al­so re­ferred to an ad­ver­tise­ment in a dai­ly news­pa­per in which the pub­lic had been in­vit­ed by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and the Econ­o­my to in­di­cate in­ter­est in land at In­vaders Bay. He said: "In­vaders Bay be­longs to the city of Port-of-Spain and yet here is de­vel­op­ment be­ing pro­posed with­out any dis­cus­sion with the cor­po­ra­tion, these lands can­not be de­vel­oped with­out the as­sent of the city cor­po­ra­tion." In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view Min­is­ter of Plan­ning Bhoe Tewarie said as far as he was aware In­vaders Bay was not vest­ed in the city of Port-of-Spain.

He said he in­tend­ed, how­ev­er, to speak to the may­or about not on­ly the In­vaders Bay de­vel­op­ment but al­so the de­vel­op­ment of the city of Port-of-Spain and had in­di­cat­ed this to Lee Sing.