Leroy George

The first para­graph on the “about” page of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) web­site reads:

“The Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) is a spe­cial pur­pose state en­ter­prise, which was es­tab­lished by the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2005. NID­CO de­vel­ops and im­ple­ments large-scale phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture projects in the trans­porta­tion, wa­ter man­age­ment, land and en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion sub-sec­tors. The pri­ma­ry ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the Com­pa­ny are pro­cure­ment man­age­ment, project man­age­ment and man­age­ment of ma­rine trans­porta­tion ser­vices. “

NID­CO has been tasked, by Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, with ex­e­cut­ing the ex­pan­sion of the ANR Robin­son Air­port in To­ba­go. This re­quires that over 100 prop­er­ty own­ers and their fam­i­lies be re­lo­cat­ed from their homes in the Crown Point area (where ac­cess to goods and ser­vices are as good as it can get in To­ba­go); to ar­eas like Shir­van Road (where ac­cess to goods and ser­vices are as poor as it can get in To­ba­go West).

There is lit­tle to no ac­cess to elec­tric­i­ty where these res­i­dents are be­ing re­lo­cat­ed. Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment has been able to ac­quire, with or with­out vol­un­tary con­sent, the lands of the Crown Point res­i­dents through the ‘Land Ac­qui­si­tion Act 28 of 1994’ and NID­CO is able to ex­e­cute its du­ties through the pow­er in­vest­ed in it by Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, many To­bag­o­ni­ans are ask­ing, “Is Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s charge over the air­port ex­pan­sion project con­sis­tent with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act?”

The Land Ac­qui­si­tion Act was cre­at­ed in 1994, but in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act 40, with a 1996 re­form, there is a list of 33 re­spon­si­bil­i­ties that are list­ed in its 5th Sched­ule which be­long to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. Item 16 on this list reads: “In­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing air and sea trans­porta­tion, wharves and air­ports and pub­lic util­i­ties.”

The main point of con­tention that ex­ists be­tween the Crown Point res­i­dents who were and are be­ing re­lo­cat­ed, is the amount of com­pen­sa­tion that has been of­fered to them. The first sen­tence of Part 3 of the Land Ac­qui­si­tion Act, la­belled “com­pen­sa­tion,” (sec­tion 11) states: “Any dis­pute as to com­pen­sa­tion payable un­der this Act shall be de­ter­mined by a Judge in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions.”

Sec­tion 12 of the Act goes on to read, “The as­sess­ment of the amount of com­pen­sa­tion shall be made in ac­cor­dance with the fol­low­ing rules (a) the val­ue of land shall, sub­ject as here­in af­ter pro­vid­ed, be tak­en to be the amount which the land, if sold in the open mar­ket by a will­ing sell­er in the con­di­tion in which it was, might be ex­pect­ed to re­alise at the date of the take of pos­ses­sion of the land un­der sec­tion 4(1) on the date of pub­li­ca­tion in the Gazette of the de­c­la­ra­tion made un­der sec­tion 5(3) whichev­er is ear­li­er.

There is room for much im­prove­ment where pub­lic ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing what is hap­pen­ing in Crown Point, as it per­tains to com­pen­sa­tion, is con­cerned. The ap­par­ent lack of con­sis­ten­cy with the 5th Sched­ule of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act has caused an air of sus­pi­cion to hang over the en­tire air­port ex­pan­sion project.

Some To­bag­o­ni­ans are wait­ing to see if the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly will file for an in­junc­tion based on the 5th Sched­ule to, if pos­si­ble, among oth­er things, pur­chase for the res­i­dents a stronger bar­gain­ing po­si­tion for fair com­pen­sa­tion and al­so time to evac­u­ate their homes and so sal­vage some of their build­ing ma­te­ri­als.

Fresh evic­tion no­tices were giv­en to the last re­main­ing res­i­dents in the af­fect­ed area, which in­structs them to evac­u­ate be­fore the 15th of Sep­tem­ber 2022. It may be of im­por­tance to most Trinidad and To­ba­go prop­er­ty own­ers to gain an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of ex­act­ly how the val­ue of the Crown Point res­i­dents’ homes were de­ter­mined so as to al­lo­cate com­pen­sa­tion. Their land val­ues seem­ing­ly di­min­ished by Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion meth­ods may al­so mean a re­duc­tion in prop­er­ty val­ues across the na­tion and re­sult in sub­se­quent re­duc­tions in the bills levied up­on us in re­la­tion to prop­er­ty tax­es col­lect­ed by Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

Leroy George is the Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the To­ba­go Writ­ers Guild. For more in­for­ma­tion about the Guild feel free to call or What­sApp them at 1(868)620-5799, email To­bagoWrit­ers­Guild123@gmail.co­mor vis­it our Face­book or In­sta­gram ac­counts @To­bagoWrit­ers­Guild