Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ap­peased protest­ing for­mer Ca­roni work­ers by promis­ing land dis­tri­b­u­tion in three weeks. He did so af­ter a hand­ful of them threat­ened to dis­rupt the UNC's Mon­day night meet­ing in Fe­lic­i­ty.The for­mer work­ers were chased away from the front of the UNC stage in Fe­lic­i­ty short­ly be­fore Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived. They ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of poor gov­er­nance and de­ceit.

Two of the work­ers–Ramdeo Bal­go­b­in and Ra­keeb Mo­hammed–said they had been wait­ing to meet with Per­sad-Bisses­sar for months to dis­cuss the plight of the for­mer work­ers but she had been in­ac­ces­si­ble.Bal­go­b­in said work­ers had in­vest­ed in a "sweet­en­er loan" in 2003 when the com­pa­ny went de­funct but ten years lat­er they were yet to re­ceive their promised dues. Mo­hammed al­so com­plained that work­ers were yet to re­ceive their res­i­den­tial lots.

Mooni­lal, who is in charge of land af­fairs, told the UNC sup­port­ers help was on the way for the for­mer work­ers. He said un­der the Patrick Man­ning gov­ern­ment, a court mat­ter to de­prive them of their promised lands was tak­en to the Privy Coun­cil.

"When we got in­to gov­ern­ment there was a rul­ing and the judge said that Ca­roni lands should be pre­pared for work­ers and all in­fra­struc­ture should be in place by 2008. Man­ning took that rul­ing to the Court of Ap­peal to de­prive peo­ple and one of the first things we did when we got in­to gov­ern­ment was in­struct the AG to with­draw that mat­ter in the Privy Coun­cil," Mooni­lal said.

With re­gard to land dis­tri­b­u­tion, he said 700 lots would be dis­trib­uted to for­mer Ca­roni work­ers for res­i­den­tial pur­pos­es.He al­so said all those who were de­prived of their life's sav­ings by in­vest­ing in the "sweet­en­er loan pro­gramme" would al­so re­ceive their monies with­in the next three weeks.