The Land Settlement Agency says it is willing to meet with residents of New Lands Village, Guayaguayare, who raised issues with the allocation of lots in the area to former PETROTRIN employees.
The residents in a protest earlier this week said the allocation of land was unfair, since they had applied and were promised land in that community more than a decade ago, but to date, they did not know the status of their applications.
In a release the LSA said only 46 lots and not 75 as the residents claimed have been allocated under the PETROTRIN Lands Programme in the La Savanne and Nurse Trace communities.
The residents said they had no problem with the former Petrotrin workers receiving land but a percentage of the land must also be given to the residents.
The LSA said it was unable to confirm their claims about the application process, “as they have not formally contacted the LSA.”
They said other programs which are now discontinued like Land for the Landless and Residential Lots Programme (LFL) and the Government Aided Self-Help Housing Programme (GASHHP) would have also been done through computerized random selection draws.
“We do empathise with the feelings of frustration being experienced by the residents, however, we can assure them that there would have been no bias that would have excluded any eligible applicant in the selection process,” the LSA said in its release.
The LSA added the only two former PETROTRIN workers from the area did not receive land either.
The lots distributed in the community were allocated under the PETROTRIN Lands Programme, and were distributed by televised computerised random selection draws.
“We can confirm that neither of them have yet been selected in any of the three live randomised draws held in September 2021, August 2022 and August 2023. As per the policy framework, applicants are not given the opportunity to select a preferred location and as such there is no provision for location-based priority in the selection process. This means that these former employees would not have been afforded any preference in the draws for lots in this area,” the LSA said.