SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Six months af­ter the new Gov­ern­ment dis­trib­uted more than 200 res­i­den­tial leas­es, dozens of re­cip­i­ents are still wait­ing to build on their land be­cause their bound­aries have yet to be es­tab­lished.

Shami­la Bas­deo, one of the re­cip­i­ents, has been wait­ing months for her res­i­den­tial lot at Ex­change II, Cou­va, to be de­mar­cat­ed.

Her pa­tience is wear­ing thin.

“To me, I ask my­self if this was a pap­py show,” an an­gry Bas­deo said, re­fer­ring to the lease dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny.

“At the end of the day, every­thing was in the pub­lic do­main. And then af­ter... you have to sit and wait. We have wait­ed so long... and now we have to wait again. What is the keep-back? I feel so an­gry about it,” she told the Sun­day Guardian dur­ing an in­ter­view on Wednes­day.

Bas­deo is one of sev­er­al re­cip­i­ents who have re­ceived their leas­es but still do not know the ex­act bound­aries of their lots.

Oth­ers said they are wait­ing to be shown the lo­ca­tion of their parcels, some of which have yet to be as­signed lot num­bers.

Among those still wait­ing for their bound­aries to be iden­ti­fied are Boodoo Ram­so­may, Ri­car­do Raul Ra­jku­mar, Gene­va Pereira-Su­per­sad, Kissoon Ra­jesh De­okaran, Band­han Tick­o­rie, Ju­nior Baldeo, Ma­han­dra Pooran, Gob­in Ramkissoon and Shaid Ali.

Ram­so­may said he has a gen­er­al idea of where his res­i­den­tial lot is lo­cat­ed in Cou­va.

“I just have to get the bound­aries put on my land. That is my big keep-back.”

Af­ter re­ceiv­ing the lease for his agri­cul­tur­al par­cel, Ram­so­may said he was told he would have to pay for a sur­vey, which he can­not af­ford.

Ra­jku­mar is al­so await­ing the de­mar­ca­tion of his land so he can oc­cu­py it.

Pereira-Su­per­sad said no one has con­tact­ed her to sched­ule a site vis­it.

“We are still wait­ing like every­body else. What we go do? We can’t do noth­ing. We have to wait.”

De­okaran, a for­mer cane cut­ter, said that once his lot is iden­ti­fied, he will have to place it in the hands of a rel­a­tive be­cause of his de­clin­ing health.

Al­though Tick­o­rie knows his lot num­ber is 91, he is still wait­ing for the bound­aries to be for­mal­ly marked.

“When I col­lect­ed my lease, I thought they would ah show me my bound­ary and I would have start­ed to build. That is what I as­sumed,” the 53-year-old said.

He ad­mit­ted his as­sump­tion was wrong.

“I don’t know if I will die be­fore I get to live on the land,” he added.

Baldeo, who worked for 13 years at Ca­roni (1975) Ltd, said bound­ary pick­ets had al­ready been placed on his prop­er­ty but he had re­ceived no fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

“Last week I went to Ca­roni’s of­fice. They say they are work­ing on it.”

He, too, is grow­ing in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed by the de­lay.

Pooran, 76, said no one from Ca­roni (1975) Ltd has con­tact­ed him about his land.

Pen­sion­er Ramkissoon has vis­it­ed the com­pa­ny’s of­fice in Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va, sev­er­al times to en­quire about the lo­ca­tion of his bound­aries, but said he has on­ly been giv­en the runaround.

“They on­ly telling me to come back, come back... they ain’t ready for that site yet. This is a pro­ce­dure. We have to wait. The longer we wait, the clos­er we are to our graves,” Ramkissoon said.

Even at the age of 72, Ali is still pa­tient­ly wait­ing for his bound­aries to be es­tab­lished.

Ali has al­ready placed a “For Sale” sign on the prop­er­ty, which is lo­cat­ed a stone’s throw from the South­ern Main Road.

He is among sev­er­al for­mer work­ers hop­ing to sell their land.

Lots at Ex­change II have re­port­ed­ly been sell­ing for about $800,000 each.

A fa­ther of six, Ali said he can­not yet trans­fer the prop­er­ty in­to his chil­dren’s names.

“If I sell the land, I could give each of them a por­tion of the mon­ey.”

Land dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny

It has now been 23 years since Ca­roni (1975) Ltd closed its doors.

On Jan­u­ary 21 this year, 250 for­mer work­ers re­ceived leas­es for res­i­den­tial lots that had been promised to them in 2003 when Ca­roni closed be­cause of mount­ing debt and high op­er­at­ing costs.

A Vol­un­tary Sep­a­ra­tion of Em­ploy­ment Pro­gramme (VSEP) was of­fered to 7,866 dai­ly-paid and 1,154 month­ly-paid work­ers.

As part of their VSEP pack­ages, each work­er was promised a two-acre agri­cul­tur­al par­cel and one res­i­den­tial lot.

Bas­deo be­lieves the UNC Gov­ern­ment should have com­plet­ed the prepara­to­ry work be­fore dis­trib­ut­ing the leas­es to avoid the cur­rent de­lays.

She said dozens of for­mer work­ers have died with­out re­ceiv­ing what they were promised, while many oth­ers have ex­pe­ri­enced de­clin­ing health.

Be­tween Au­gust and Oc­to­ber last year, 310 res­i­den­tial leas­es were dis­trib­uted.

Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein said the Gov­ern­ment still has 3,000 res­i­den­tial leas­es and about 1,751 agri­cul­tur­al plots to dis­trib­ute.

Most re­cip­i­ents, all of whom are over the age of 50, live in Cou­va, Cal­i­for­nia, Cara­pichaima, Freeport, Clax­ton Bay, Ch­agua­nas, Williamsville, Princes Town, Wood­land, Debe, Pe­nal, San Fer­nan­do, St Madeleine, Point Fortin and Gas­par­il­lo.

Giv­en their ages, many fear they may nev­er have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­joy the land.

Af­ter col­lect­ing her lease, Bas­deo re­ceived ap­provals from the Fire Ser­vice, WASA and the Health Min­istry.

While some for­mer work­ers in­tend to sell their land, Bas­deo, like many oth­ers, had hoped to build a home.

How­ev­er, she lat­er dis­cov­ered that the PVC pipes orig­i­nal­ly in­stalled as bound­ary mark­ers had melt­ed dur­ing bush­fires.

As a re­sult, she no longer knows where the bound­aries of her prop­er­ty lie.

The Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EM­BD) is re­spon­si­ble for man­ag­ing and de­vel­op­ing the for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Ltd lands.

Bas­deo said her fa­ther, Ram­nar­ine Bas­deo, who worked at Ca­roni for 25 years as a boil­er op­er­a­tor, died four years ago be­fore he had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ben­e­fit from the land al­lo­ca­tion.

The agri­cul­tur­al par­cel at Ed­in­burgh was shared be­tween Bas­deo and her broth­er.

The res­i­den­tial lot was al­lo­cat­ed sole­ly to Bas­deo.

The moth­er of one said she en­quired whether she could hire a pri­vate sur­vey­or to re-es­tab­lish the bound­aries, but Ca­roni (1975) Ltd ad­vised her she would do so at her own risk.

She not­ed that many home­own­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty had hired pri­vate sur­vey­ors to es­tab­lish their bound­aries.

“We can’t do any­thing un­til we get the re-es­tab­lish­ment of the bound­ary point. Some­times I feel so an­gry be­cause, you know what, we have wait­ed for so long.”

Ho­sein’s re­sponse

Guardian Me­dia sent Ho­sein a What­sApp mes­sage out­lin­ing the for­mer work­ers’ con­cerns and ask­ing when they would be able to oc­cu­py their lots.

Re­spond­ing, Ho­sein said work has been con­tin­u­ing at the site.

“The work­ers and their fam­i­lies who have wait­ed for over 22 years for their leas­es have been grant­ed their lots af­ter one year of the UNC form­ing the Gov­ern­ment.”

Ho­sein said re­cip­i­ents now have reg­is­tered deeds in their pos­ses­sion.

“We are work­ing with all stake­hold­ers for the point­ing out of their lots. Re­cip­i­ents are free to re­tain the ser­vices of pri­vate sur­vey­ors for the con­fir­ma­tion of their bound­aries,” Ho­sein said.

How­ev­er, a source at Ca­roni (1975) Ltd told Guardian Me­dia that dozens of for­mer work­ers re­ceived tele­phone calls in­struct­ing them to re­port to the com­pa­ny’s Brechin Cas­tle of­fice on Fri­day, when they would be tak­en to view their lots at Ex­change.

Two months ago, Ho­sein said the UNC’s 2025 man­i­festo promised that all out­stand­ing res­i­den­tial and agri­cul­tur­al lands un­der the VSEP pack­age would be dis­trib­uted.

He said the min­istry has been work­ing to stream­line the process.

“We don’t look at land as just some­where you live,” Ho­sein said.

He de­scribed land as both an in­vest­ment and a source of gen­er­a­tional wealth for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

With­in the first 100 days of the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion, the Gov­ern­ment dis­trib­uted more than 300 leas­es to for­mer work­ers.

Ho­sein al­so pledged to restart work on in­com­plete sites to ac­cel­er­ate the dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gramme.

He said that un­der the spa­tial da­ta in­fra­struc­ture frame­work, ben­e­fi­cia­ries would re­ceive their land more quick­ly.

Lit­i­ga­tion halts Ca­roni land dis­tri­b­u­tion across 14 sites

Ca­roni (1975) Ltd’s 76,600 acres were trans­ferred to the Gov­ern­ment un­der the Vest­ing Act of 2006.

The Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EM­BD) was as­signed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for de­liv­er­ing 7,246 two-acre agri­cul­tur­al parcels to el­i­gi­ble ben­e­fi­cia­ries and dis­trib­ut­ing 8,855 res­i­den­tial ser­vice lots.

The lands were to be de­vel­oped across 30 sites.

How­ev­er, work at 14 sites was halt­ed be­cause of lit­i­ga­tion be­tween the EM­BD and sev­er­al con­trac­tors, de­lay­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of leas­es to thou­sands of for­mer work­ers.

Ca­roni (1975) Ltd es­ti­mat­ed the val­ue of each res­i­den­tial ser­vice lot at $500,000.

The to­tal val­ue of the 8,855 res­i­den­tial lots was es­ti­mat­ed at $4.4 bil­lion.

The 7,246 agri­cul­tur­al parcels were val­ued at $1 bil­lion, with each plot car­ry­ing an es­ti­mat­ed val­ue of $140,000.

Ho­sein said the EM­BD spent more than $100 mil­lion on le­gal fees over the past decade while for­mer work­ers re­mained with­out their land.

He said re­me­di­al works still have to be car­ried out on some sites.

Ac­cord­ing to Ho­sein, the lots have statu­to­ry ap­provals, street light­ing, WASA con­nec­tions and elec­tric­i­ty ac­cess.

Ca­roni (1975) Ltd spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly $10 bil­lion on its wind­ing-up ex­er­cise fol­low­ing the com­pa­ny’s clo­sure in 2003.

This was dis­closed dur­ing a 2019 meet­ing of the Pub­lic Ac­counts (En­ter­pris­es) Com­mit­tee, which ex­am­ined the com­pa­ny’s au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for 2010 to 2018.

In 2018, then agri­cul­ture min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat said the agri­cul­tur­al and res­i­den­tial lands promised to for­mer work­ers had cost the State ap­prox­i­mate­ly $5 bil­lion.