Not so, says Joseph

HOUSING MINISTER Martin Joseph on Tuesday hit back at Opposition charges that the Government had improperly displaced farmers from lands at Ramgoolie Trace, Curepe, to build houses for political supporters to voter-pad in the marginal St Joseph constituency.

Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Wade Mark, had earlier criticised the Government for overseeing the destruction of diverse agricultural crops grown on the 30 acres of land by some 40 farmers, saying 40 years of toil had been destroyed in seven hours. Reading out a letter from a professor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, which stated that the area had very good quality agricultural land which was so rare it should not be used for housing, Mark asked whether the Government had a land use policy. He accused the Government of wanting to build National Housing Authority (NHA) houses there to voter-pad for the next general elections. He urged the Government to find a new location to build the NHA houses, saying the Opposition supported reinstatement of the farmers, compensation for crops destroyed and issuing of title to the lands.

In reply Joseph said that the Government had a proper land use policy and assured that his ministry did not just “take” agricultural lands and convert it for housing uses, but that there existed a proper procedure to allocate lands to different types of activity. He explained that at Ramgoolie Trace the NHA would be building 368 upper/middle income housing units including single-family units, duplexes, townhouses and condominiums. Joseph said in April 2003 the NHA got permission from the Director of Surveys to enter the site and, contrary to farmers’ claims, had discovered it to be parched and overgrown with razor grass with just a scattering of crops.  Saying the farmers were now claiming compensation for a variety of 19,330 crops, Joseph said: “It is impossible for all the crops described to be accommodated on the land.”

Joseph said the Government had offered to relocate the farmers to a 15-acre site, give them full title to these lands, and compensate them for damaged crops as assessed by a Government survey. He said the farmers had rejected the offer. Answering Mark’s charges that the ministry’s staff had brutally bulldozed the farmers’ land, Joseph said his staff had been abused by the farmers. Joseph concluded: “All the holes drilled for fence poles have been filled in by people opposed to the Government housing plans. It is inconceivable that the Government’s generous offer be rejected by persons who have no claim to the lands.”