RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram has launched a probe in­to the Youth in Agri­cul­ture Home­stead Pro­gramme (YAHP), ac­cus­ing the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion of mis­lead­ing hun­dreds of young peo­ple with promis­es of land, homes and fund­ing that nev­er ma­te­ri­alised.

The ini­tia­tive, launched un­der for­mer Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings, was ex­pect­ed to pro­duce 1,000 new farm­ers, but ac­cord­ing to Rati­ram, not a sin­gle promise was ful­filled, and the starter homes are nowhere to be seen al­though monies had been al­lo­cat­ed.

Speak­ing to re­porters at a seedling dis­tri­b­u­tion event host­ed by San Fer­nan­do West MP Dr Michael Dowlath on Sat­ur­day, Rati­ram ac­cused Cum­mings of mis­lead­ing young peo­ple by of­fer­ing promis­es that were nev­er ful­filled.

“What I can say about that pro­gramme and what I can say about the PNM—you know, we al­ways say PNM promis­es nev­er ma­te­ri­alise,” Rati­ram said.

“It is so sad that they have used the youths of our coun­try for per­son­al, po­lit­i­cal gains with­in the PNM. It back­fired in their face and the pub­lic saw straight through their false promis­es and the false nar­ra­tive that they’ve ped­dled.”

The pro­gramme, he said, promised each par­tic­i­pant a two-acre plot of agri­cul­tur­al land, a $20,000 grant, and a starter home. But Rati­ram said there is no vis­i­ble sign that the promis­es were kept, as he is yet to find any sign that the in­fra­struc­ture nec­es­sary for the pro­gramme was ini­ti­at­ed to any se­ri­ous de­gree.

“They have got­ten youths in­volved in that pro­gramme, promis­ing these youths a two-acre par­cel, promis­ing these youths $20,000 up­on com­ple­tion of their pro­gramme and a starter home,” Rati­ram said.

“Can you tell me how many starter homes have been con­struct­ed? We are look­ing for these starter homes. Where are the starter homes that they promised the youths?”

He added, “How many parcels of agri­cul­tur­al land have been sur­veyed and al­lo­cat­ed or des­ig­nat­ed for these core homes? We are look­ing for it.”

Rati­ram said he has for­mal­ly re­quest­ed a brief­ing on the pro­gramme from the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (PS) in the min­istry.

“We are still, yet, to go through that en­tire brief with the PS from that min­istry and our min­istry, so that we can see how best we can bridge the gap in the false promis­es that have been ped­dled to the youths of this coun­try,” he ex­plained.

He said the aim is not to scrap the pro­gramme but to eval­u­ate and re­assess it to en­sure it can be re­struc­tured in­to a mean­ing­ful ini­tia­tive.

“We do not lose hope. But we re-eval­u­ate, re­assess that en­tire pro­gramme so that we can re­al­ly de­liv­er some­thing mean­ing­ful to the youths of our coun­try.”

Asked if any home­steads were be­ing de­vel­oped in ar­eas like Chatham, Rati­ram said, “Un­til we get the brief and we look at it, we will then be able to make a bet­ter pro­nounce­ment on it. For now, what I can say is that we are look­ing for the da­ta, we are look­ing for the in­for­ma­tion, we are look­ing for the starter homes—we’re not see­ing any starter homes.”

Cum­mings re­sponds

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Cum­mings said the home­stead pro­gramme was start­ed in Chatham.

“We an­nounced very open­ly and clear­ly that the pi­lot pro­gramme for the home­stead pro­gramme is Chatham. Every­body knows that. We had a big launch. We dis­trib­uted a hun­dred and some­thing lots there. There are hous­es un­der con­struc­tion there for the home­stead. “It is well known. So, I don’t know who may have mis­in­formed the min­is­ter, but that is a fact—that the pro­gramme start­ed in Chatham and there are sev­er­al hun­dred acres of land cur­rent­ly un­der de­vel­op­ment in Chatham for that pro­gramme.”

When told that the hous­es were sup­posed to have been com­plet­ed in De­cem­ber, as stat­ed by him (Cum­mings) in an in­ter­view last year, he re­spond­ed, “It’s a process. We now have pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion. The Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) was the agency that gov­ern­ment ap­proved to con­duct that par­tic­u­lar process. It’s a pro­gramme, but they have to go through their pro­cure­ment process­es. Min­is­ters don’t award con­tracts. And, there­fore, we have to wait on the LSA to com­plete their pro­cure­ment process.”

He added, “The pro­gramme was launched and we gave out li­cences to oc­cu­py. That’s why I told you I’m go­ing to make a com­pre­hen­sive state­ment of this on Mon­day (to­day).

“We gave out li­cences to oc­cu­py for about a hun­dred and some­thing homes, and the LSA would have start­ed the process of re­cruit­ing con­trac­tors through their pro­cure­ment process to con­struct the homes. Some have al­ready been con­struct­ed in phas­es. We have giv­en out to some peo­ple while I was still in of­fice.”

Cum­mings said while the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues an au­dit of the pro­gramme, he is hope­ful the project will be com­plet­ed.

More on YAPH

Last Sep­tem­ber, Cum­mings told Guardian Me­dia that by the end of 2024, 175 young farm­ers would be grant­ed ac­cess to two-acre plots in Chatham, with each plot val­ued at over $500,000. At that time, Cum­mings said the Land Set­tle­ment Agency would al­so con­struct 176 starter homes, each val­ued at $242,571, for par­tic­i­pants.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the Chatham site in Sep­tem­ber 2024, Guardian Me­dia ob­served mil­i­tary guards, one ex­ca­va­tor, and a sin­gle con­tain­er, but no ac­tive con­struc­tion was tak­ing place.

At that time, Cum­mings had said then that the pro­gramme was pro­gress­ing well.

He said the Chatham site would have fea­tured full in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing wa­ter sys­tems, elec­tric­i­ty, drainage, re­tail and recre­ation­al spaces, and a five-acre mod­el farm equipped with hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tems, shade hous­es, and live­stock fa­cil­i­ties to sup­port mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al train­ing.

Ad­di­tion­al home­steads were al­so ex­pect­ed to be de­vel­oped in La Glo­ria Es­tate, Carlisle Es­tate, Tal­paro, and To­co.