Govt ready to deliver lands to former Caroni workers

Government is ready to give former Caroni workers lands for houses. Minister in the Ministry of Finance Christine Sahadeo announced yesterday that 6,164 former Caroni workers will receive “priority consideration” for the lease of residential lands. Although she didn’t say how much land each worker will get, she said 1,027 acres would be used to meet the demand for residential lots by former Caroni employees. In a statement to the Senate yesterday, Sahadeo said the list of eligible former employees was determined on the basis of a “comprehensive evaluation exercise by Ernst and Young.” She added that the allocation of lots would be undertaken through an open random selection process.

Sahadeo said of the 76,608 acres of land owned by Caroni, which were available for development, 1,402 “could” be used to accommodate heavy and light industrial estates, commerical complexes and residential sites. She said Government intended to consider for possible development one heavy industrial estate at Point Lisas North and South, and seven light industrial estates at Dow Village, Reform, Factory Road (Chaguanas), Endeavour, Preysal, Debe and Tarouba. It is also proposed to establish two commerical complexes at Endeavour and Couva.

Saying that Government had mandated the Estate Management Business Development Company (EMBD)  to undertake the development of a significant portion of the residential estates, she said the EMBD was “well advanced in conducting the relevant engineering designs, surveys and obtaining the necessary approvals from the Town and Country Planning Division. Sahadeo added that Government provided the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Trade Union with a list of all applicants who were not considered eligible to receive land “to ensure the integrity of the allocation process.”

On the leasing of lands for agriculture, she said Government had decided that 17 locations, involving 14,000 acres  throughout Caroni holdings, would be used for this purpose. She said the development of agricultural estates would proceed on a phased basis with the first phase involving the development of four estates at Caroni, Waterloo, Beaucarro, Exchange and Reform. Sahadeo said the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources had been requested to undertake the allocation of two-acre agricultural plots pending the completion of infrastructural works on the sites, so that occupation would be possible.