RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is says the Gov­ern­ment is on an ac­tive dri­ve to re­move squat­ters across the coun­try, some of whom have been il­le­gal­ly sell­ing state land.

Speak­ing on the is­sue dur­ing the open­ing of the City Heights Hous­ing Com­plex at Co­coyea, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day, Robin­son-Reg­is said, “We have seen an ex­plo­sion of squat­ting and even peo­ple who have de­cid­ed they can sell state land. They are squat lords. They don’t own the land, but they are sell­ing it.”

She said this prac­tice is un­fair to those who le­git­i­mate­ly ap­ply for land own­er­ship.

“Peo­ple can­not get the ti­tle to the land, and they will still be moved off,” she said.

Her com­ment came a day af­ter 12 squat­ters’ homes were de­mol­ished by the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) at Ram­jat­tan Trace, La Hor­quet­ta.

Crews from the LSA, the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands and the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) de­mol­ished the hous­es af­ter evic­tion no­tices were is­sued to res­i­dents in Oc­to­ber last year.

The HDC said it had re­ports that in­di­vid­u­als were il­le­gal­ly sell­ing the state-owned land. Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the neigh­bour­hood just be­fore 8 am yes­ter­day, as of­fi­cers from the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion and Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) kept watch as crews be­gan knock­ing down sev­er­al wood­en and con­crete struc­tures.

The min­is­ter em­pha­sised that the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing steps to en­sure that squat­ting does not con­tin­ue.

“We make sure that peo­ple do not con­tin­ue to squat on state land,” she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­so high­light­ed the en­vi­ron­men­tal and in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenges caused by squat­ting.

“They have been oc­cu­py­ing the first re­serves, quar­ry­ing, and cre­at­ing a sit­u­a­tion that is un­ten­able,” she said.

The min­is­ter re­vealed that the Gov­ern­ment has been re­mov­ing il­le­gal oc­cu­pants and mon­i­tor­ing state lands to pre­vent fur­ther en­croach­ments.

Since 2021, Guardian Me­dia has al­so been re­port­ing ex­ten­sive­ly on squat­ting set­tle­ments pop­ping up on va­cant lands sur­round­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Pe­nal/Debe cam­pus on the M2 Ring Road, Debe.

Along Welling­ton Road, squat­ters have put up wire fenc­ing and con­crete struc­tures. Some have plant­ed co­conut trees and ba­nana plants as a ruse for il­le­gal land grab­bing.

Along Welling­ton Road, Debe, a busi­ness­man blocked the Hang­man Riv­er and claimed a por­tion of State land. At that time, Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands Bhamatie Seecha­ran told Guardian Me­dia she would ini­ti­ate le­gal ac­tion against the busi­ness­man for the il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of State lands. How­ev­er, the land now has elec­tric­i­ty on the prop­er­ty.

There have al­so been squat­ter set­tle­ments crop­ping up in­side Pic­ton Street, Di­a­mond Vil­lage; along Pa­pourie Road, Di­a­mond Vil­lage and along aban­doned cane­field set­tle­ments at Es­per­ance Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do. Le­git­i­mate land­hold­ers have al­leged that State land is be­ing sold for $40,000 per lot by un­scrupu­lous crim­i­nals who have made con­nec­tions with cor­rupt of­fi­cials work­ing in var­i­ous State agen­cies.