Sascha Wil­son

The Gov­ern­ment is be­ing called up­on to pay out­stand­ing com­pen­sa­tion to fam­i­lies whose lands were ac­quired by the State for the Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin project.

High­way Reroute Move­ment (HRM) leader Wayne Kublals­ingh said sev­er­al peo­ple who owned land with­in the Mon De­sir to Debe seg­ment have died with­out re­ceiv­ing their com­pen­sa­tion.

At a news con­fer­ence on Tues­day, Kublals­ingh was joined by three of the af­fect­ed per­sons who had owned por­tions of agri­cul­tur­al lands with­in a one mile stretch be­tween the Mon De­sir In­ter­change and the Fyz­abad In­ter­change.

While that seg­ment is al­most com­plete, he said they have not re­ceived com­pen­sa­tion.

He said this is il­le­gal be­cause it goes against the EMA Act which stat­ed NID­CO “should en­sure that all fi­nals ne­go­ti­a­tions for the ac­qui­si­tion of all prop­er­ties in­clu­sive of pri­vate agri­cul­tur­al lands and com­pen­sa­tion to the own­ers should be com­plet­ed be­fore the com­mence­ment of any re­lo­ca­tion or de­mo­li­tion works as well as any con­struct­ed ac­tiv­i­ties with­in 500 me­ters of the af­fect­ed per­sons.”

Kublals­ingh said they took the mat­ter to court, but it was thrown out due to a tech­ni­cal­i­ty.

“We wrote to the Prime Min­is­ter. We wrote to NID­CO. We wrote to the EMA and they have not re­solved this mat­ter. Many peo­ple along here have died,” he said.

Lament­ing that 16 mem­bers of the HRM have died in the last six years, he said the non- pay­ment of com­pen­sa­tion is il­le­gal and im­moral.

Al­lud­ing to the 2019 Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to cor­rup­tion in the land ac­qui­si­tion for the high­way, which has failed to come off the ground, he said, “If it is the Gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed in­ten­tion to dis­cov­er cor­rup­tion, ma­lig­nant be­hav­iour on the part of pub­lic of­fi­cials why are they re­peat­ing the same thing they are ask­ing the en­quiry to dis­cov­er. It is not good. Dr Row­ley knows about this Mr Sinanan knows about this.”

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, NID­CO’s Don­na Brod­ber re­quest­ed that an email with the ques­tions be sent. Up to last night, how­ev­er, no re­sponse was forth­com­ing.