Nine­teen years af­ter for­mer Ca­roni 1975 Ltd work­ers were each promised two-acre agri­cul­tur­al plots and res­i­den­tial lots as part of their vol­un­tary sep­a­ra­tion (VSEP) pack­ages by the then Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment, there is still con­fu­sion over the dis­tri­b­u­tion of leas­es for the sprawl­ing state lands.

The pro­longed de­lay to hand over the lands by suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments has re­sult­ed in thou­sands of ex-work­ers be­ing left in lim­bo, un­cer­tain­ty, and fac­ing un­due hard­ships af­ter Ca­roni closed its doors in 2003 due to its high op­er­a­tional costs and mount­ing debt.

Dozens of the 7,866 dai­ly paid and 1,154 month­ly paid em­ploy­ees who ac­cept­ed the VSEP pack­ages died with­out re­ceiv­ing what was promised to them. Some of them are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ill health, while oth­ers re­main dis­il­lu­sioned.

One is­sue that may have stalled the dis­tri­b­u­tion process in­volved the Es­tate Man­age­ment Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (EM­BD) hav­ing 4,351 res­i­den­tial plots on 14 sites tied up in lit­i­ga­tion over con­trac­tu­al dis­putes. The PM de­scribed the $1.4 bil­lion claim against the State as "a reser­voir of white col­lar crime."

And while the farm­ers con­tin­ue to play the wait­ing game, an alarm re­cent­ly raised by then agri­cul­ture min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat over a large num­ber of fraud and cor­rup­tion mat­ters with re­spect to state lands, has left them in even more de­spair as they fear their mat­ter may nev­er be re­solved or will just drag on for years.

Be­fore ten­der­ing his res­ig­na­tion as agri­cul­ture min­is­ter last month, Ramb­harat had per­son­al­ly made over 50 re­ports of these crimes to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Ramb­harat is ex­pect­ed to take up a po­si­tion in an en­ti­ty called the Sin­gle Point Land Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty to ad­dress prob­lems re­lat­ing to the use of state lands.

Land man­age­ment will al­so be brought un­der the purview of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley while Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Sen­a­tor Nigel De Fre­itas al­so has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for lands.

Work­er went to their graves with­out get­ting their land

Ra­keeb Mo­hammed who re­cent­ly protest­ed with for­mer Ca­roni work­ers for their leas­es ad­mit­ted the lands nev­er ben­e­fit­ed those for whom it was in­tend­ed.

An es­ti­mat­ed 76,000 acres, Ca­roni 1975 Ltd lands span from Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road to far-flung Wood­land. Most of the lands are lo­cat­ed in Cen­tral, Cou­va, Clax­ton Bay and South.

"Ini­tial­ly, the whole VSEP pack­age was rushed down to the union and work­ers. This pack­age was not of­fered to the work­ers. It was pushed down their throats. They were forced to take it," said Mo­hammed who worked at Ca­roni for 23 years.

Mo­hammed, a for­mer chair­man of the ex-Ca­roni Work­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion, told the Sun­day Guardian that thou­sands of work­ers are still await­ing their res­i­den­tial leas­es, while about 1,500 peo­ple have not been as­signed their agri­cul­tur­al lands.

"Many of them got al­lo­ca­tion let­ters but nev­er ob­tained their leas­es. Scores of these work­ers went to their graves with­out re­ceiv­ing their lands."

In 2014, Mo­hammed said, the then Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment agreed "to trans­fer the lands which meant a work­er could have sold their lot or plot."

He said work­ers who were too old to work their agri­cul­tur­al plots un­der­sold their lands.

"They got next to noth­ing."

De­pend­ing on the lo­ca­tion, one lot of land can fetch up­wards of $500,000.

Mo­hammed, who served as pres­i­dent of the Sug­ar Boil­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion, said over the years the lands be­came a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball. "It has been a blame game be­tween the PNM and UNC while these help­less work­ers have been caught in the mid­dle. These work­ers were tak­en for a ride. And they are still be­ing tak­en for a ride."

From the on­set, he said, there was shod­dy in­fra­struc­tur­al work.

A man holds a placard during a protest in February by ex-Caroni workers.

'Stress of wait­ing has de­te­ri­o­ra­tion my health'

Hav­ing suf­fered a mas­sive heart at­tack on March 16, for­mer Ca­roni work­er Trevor Seecha­ran ad­mit­ted he could have died with­out re­ceiv­ing his res­i­den­tial lot in Wa­ter­loo.

Speak­ing from his hos­pi­tal bed at the Er­ic Williams Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, Seecha­ran, 52, blamed the stress of wait­ing 19 years for his lease which led to the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of his health.

"The frus­tra­tion and stress led me to this point...get­ting a mas­sive heart at­tack."

Doc­tors have al­ready ad­vised Seep­er­sad who has nurs­eries and sold or­na­men­tal plants not to do stren­u­ous work.

"I know my health is fail­ing and I am re­al­ly hop­ing that be­fore I die, I would get the lease so I can pass it on to my chil­dren."

Seep­er­sad was al­so el­i­gi­ble for a two-acre plot in Wa­ter­loo which he re­ceived a few years ago.

How­ev­er, there was a myr­i­ad of prob­lems with re­spect to the lands which in­clud­ed poor ac­cess roads.

"I tried. I re­al­ly tried to grow crops and rear live­stock but I get thief out. So that didn't work out."

Seecha­ran said peo­ple have been grab­bing lands all over the coun­try while the work­ers are be­ing de­prived of what was promised to them.

'This is a nev­er-end­ing wor­ry af­ter giv­ing your blood, sweat and tears to Ca­roni'

A stone's throw from Seecha­ran, 71-year-old Michael Mar­shall is in the same predica­ment.

Like Seecha­ran, Mar­shall has been wait­ing 19 years for his res­i­den­tial lease.

"It's over­bear­ing now," he com­plained, his voice chok­ing with emo­tions.

The fa­ther of two was al­lo­cat­ed lands in Wa­ter­loo but stat­ed that work on this site stopped more than ten years ago.

"The con­trac­tor put down some pipes and every­thing came to a stand­still. The land is over­grown with grass and un­der­de­vel­oped."

In­stead of en­joy­ing his twi­light years, Mar­shall said he con­stant­ly won­ders if he would re­ceive his land.

The pen­sion­er lament­ed that dai­ly peo­ple are dy­ing from COVID. "I don't know if COVID will take me. You know what it is to die and leave a fam­i­ly be­hind with noth­ing af­ter you gave your blood, sweat and tears to Ca­roni? This is a nev­er-end­ing wor­ry," Mar­shall said.

Ex-Caroni workers protest in February for lands promised to them.

'All we are get­ting is promis­es'

Pen­sion­er Wayne Hold­er has been wait­ing two decades for a res­i­den­tial lot in Ex­change II, Cou­va.

Hold­er, 65, said he was fed up with hold­ing on to sign his lease.

Hav­ing worked in the sug­ar com­pa­ny for 13 years, Hold­er said all the work­ers have been re­ceiv­ing are "promis­es which is a com­fort to a fool."

Leas­es out­stand­ing

A 2019 Pub­lic Ac­counts (En­ter­prise) Com­mit­tee re­port which ex­am­ined the au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ment of Ca­roni 1975 Ltd for the years 2010 to 2018 stat­ed that 4,351 res­i­den­tial plots on 14 sites were in lit­i­ga­tion with the EM­BD and at a stand­still.

The 108-page re­port stat­ed that of the 6,005 for­mer work­ers who had re­ceived two-acre agri­cul­tur­al lots 1,200 work­ers had failed to come for­ward, de­spite ex­ten­sive ad­ver­tis­ing.

Of the 7,514 ex-work­ers who ap­plied for res­i­den­tial lots 4,274 leas­es were hand­ed out in 16 sites with 230 ap­pli­ca­tions be­ing deemed in­com­plete.

Al­though 7,514 work­ers had ap­plied for res­i­den­tial lots, the re­port stat­ed, the Gov­ern­ment had ex­tend­ed the VSEP and EM­BD was able to make 8,855 lots avail­able.

"Some of the com­mit­ments re­quired de­liv­ery of the res­i­den­tial ser­vice lots and agri­cul­tur­al plots to be un­der­tak­en by the EM­BD, which has stalled due to con­trac­tu­al dis­putes, which have them­selves been pro­longed due to be­ing tak­en to the courts over which Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed has no con­trol. There was no ev­i­dence of an ini­tial as­sess­ment of the risks that may arise and no risk mit­i­ga­tion strat­e­gy in place to deal with farm­ers who have not come for­ward to claim agri­cul­tur­al lands," the re­port con­clud­ed.

Through a de­ci­sion by Cab­i­net in 2008, EM­BD was re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing 17 agri­cul­tur­al and 30 res­i­den­tial sites. EM­BD was al­so giv­en the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to han­dle the leas­es for the lands.

Last month, Row­ley had stat­ed that the pur­suit of civ­il claims was in the ex­cess of $400 mil­lion and over $1 bil­lion in con­trac­tor claims against the EM­BD.

"I tell you this is so that you can be aware that one of the things we were deal­ing with in this coun­try is a huge reser­voir of white-col­lar crime left there by the UNC or con­tin­u­ing," he dis­closed while speak­ing at the PNM meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do.

The PM said the UNC was des­per­ate to re­turn to gov­ern­ment to bury this.

Row­ley said one EM­BD con­trac­tor was award­ed a con­tract for $34 mil­lion and the fig­ure in­creased by $300 mil­lion.

He said the for­mer Cab­i­net ap­proved $400 mil­lion in con­tracts in Ju­ly 2015, the con­trac­tors claimed to have worked in Au­gust and by Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015–elec­tion day–all $400 mil­lion was paid.

On Fri­day, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said that more than 4,000 res­i­den­tial and agri­cu­tur­al leas­es re­main out­stand­ing. He said 3,818 res­i­den­tial and 577 agri­cu­tur­al leas­es were still to be is­sued.

Protestors holding placards during a protest in February by ex-Caroni workers.

Farmer swin­dled $4,500 by COSL of­fi­cers

Cou­va farmer Sh­eryl-Anne Ram­per­sad-Sam­my broke down in tears as she re­lat­ed how she was re­cent­ly swin­dled $4,500 by em­ploy­ees of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (COSL) which is now the sub­ject of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Fraud Squad.

Ex­plain­ing how she was de­fraud­ed, Ram­per­sad-Sam­my said her hus­band, Ganess Sam­my and broth­er-in-law Kad­han Sam­my be­gan squat­ting on 20 acres of Ca­roni lands in Bas­ta Hall over two decades ago. The land, she said, was used to rear live­stock.

Ram­per­sad-Sam­my said both men sent in ap­pli­ca­tions to the COSL and Ca­roni seek­ing ap­proval to utilise the land but nev­er got a re­sponse.

Her broth­er-in-law even­tu­al­ly died and her hus­band be­came bedrid­den af­ter suf­fer­ing a stroke.

In a bid to con­tin­ue the farm, Ram­per­sad-Sam­my said she wrote the COSL seek­ing au­tho­ri­sa­tion to use the land. "I nev­er got a re­ply."

How­ev­er, a few months ago, she said a man start­ed en­croach­ing and block­ing off a large por­tion of the farm which led to a feud.

The EM­BD and a fe­male COSL field of­fi­cer (name called) re­spond­ed to the land dis­pute ear­li­er this year. The man was asked to shift his fence. The field of­fi­cer did a fol­low-up vis­it two weeks lat­er.

"That's when my trou­bles be­gan. The of­fi­cer told me that in or­der to gain ac­cess to the land with­out the man ha­rass­ing me I would have to get a sta­tus doc­u­ment which would cost $4,500."

Ram­per­sad-Sam­my said she was told the sta­tus doc­u­ment would fast track the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion process to ob­tain se­cu­ri­ty of land tenure.

"She asked me to send my lo­ca­tion via What­sApp to an­oth­er field of­fi­cer (the name giv­en) to do the job. At the time, my hus­band was sick and I had to sell a cow to raise the mon­ey."

Two weeks lat­er, the doc­u­ment was dropped off by the two of­fi­cers who col­lect­ed the cash pay­ment.

Ram­per­sad-Sam­my said the doc­u­ment looked like a sur­vey­or's plan with draw­ings of bound­aries.

"I re­al­ly couldn't un­der­stand the doc­u­ment and the of­fi­cer promised to re­turn to ex­plain it to me, but she nev­er showed up."

How­ev­er, she said the land dis­pute in­ten­si­fied in Feb­ru­ary and an­oth­er COSL of­fi­cer came to in­ves­ti­gate. "When I showed the of­fi­cer the doc­u­ment she told me it was use­less."

The of­fi­cer promised to re­port the mat­ter to her su­pe­ri­ors.

Days lat­er, Ram­per­sad-Sam­my was asked by Fraud Squad of­fi­cers to vis­it the Land Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion on March 17 for ques­tion­ing.

The next day of­fi­cers al­so vis­it­ed Ram­per­sad-Sam­my's farm and seized the doc­u­ment and her cell phone which had What­sApp mes­sages be­tween her and the of­fi­cers.

Her son al­so gave the po­lice a state­ment.

Last Oc­to­ber, Ram­per­sad-Sam­my said she ob­tained a let­ter from COSL in­form­ing her that she was il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­py­ing the land.

Ques­tions were What­sApped to COSL Bhan­mati Seecha­ran re­gard­ing this mat­ter, but she failed to re­spond.

Bharath: Lack of over­sight and checks and bal­ances

Dur­ing his tenure as food pro­duc­tion min­is­ter, Vas­ant Bharath said a lot of peo­ple want­ed agri­cul­tur­al land. Bharath said the min­istry had a pol­i­cy that on­ly when they iden­ti­fied a par­tic­u­lar block of land, they would par­cel it out and ad­ver­tise it to the gen­er­al pub­lic for agri­cul­tur­al use.

"I thought that process was ar­cha­ic, very lethar­gic and cer­tain­ly not con­flu­ent with the poli­cies I had put in place with re­gard to ac­cel­er­at­ing the agri­cul­tur­al thrust in T&T in grow­ing more food."

Bharath said he along with tech­nocrats from the min­istry be­gan search­ing for agri­cul­tur­al lands to dis­trib­ute to farm­ers. As a re­sult of that ini­tia­tive, Bharath said he hand­ed out over 4,000 acres of land to farm­ers across the coun­try.

"It was the largest dis­tri­b­u­tion of land since 1966. The process was sup­posed to have con­tin­ued where­by we would con­tin­ue to iden­ti­fy parcels and then have a struc­tured way of en­sur­ing it went to the right peo­ple."

The agri­cul­tur­al leas­es, Bharath said, were farmed out to the pri­vate sec­tor for ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery.

"We got a blan­ket cost for prepar­ing a lease and any pri­vate at­tor­ney who could have pre­pared the lease we gave it to them."

He thought this seam­less and ef­fec­tive process would have con­tin­ued.

In­stead, Bharath said, the sys­tem cur­rent­ly in place re­flects a lack of over­sight of state lands and its em­ploy­ees.

In ad­di­tion, he said, the min­istry has not tak­en hold of its main as­sets–state lands–to find out how much land they re­al­ly have and the lo­ca­tion. "Once you leave it lay­ing around some­body would take it."

Bharath said that the le­gal process­es in the min­istry have been too slow mak­ing it easy for peo­ple to com­mit fraud­u­lent acts and get away with it.

The preva­lence of land fraud and cor­rup­tion, Bharath said, clear­ly demon­strates there has nev­er been "a prop­er­ly struc­tured plan" to deal with Ca­roni 1975 Ltd lands.

Bharath be­lieves land fraud is not an overnight is­sue and was hap­pen­ing even pri­or to him be­ing in of­fice. "But I don't think it was preva­lent as it is now be­cause peo­ple have be­come al­most em­bold­ened that they have got­ten away with it once, twice, three times and it has just got­ten worse."

He said Ram­ba­harat picked up on the fraud and cor­rup­tion on­ly to "re­alised it went a lot deep­er."

Bharath said he would not dis­count that for­mer se­nior of­fi­cials may be in­volved in land fraud.

"There have been whis­pers in the past about it. A lot of what is hap­pen­ing could not have tak­en place, with­out I think, in some in­stances, the col­lu­sion with high of­fice­hold­ers."

Agri­cul­ture Min­istry in the process of com­pil­ing re­queste­in­for­ma­tion

On March 29, the Sun­day Guardian emailed a list of ques­tions to Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Do­minic Hinds re­gard­ing the out­stand­ing leas­es.

Hinds ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of the ques­tions on March 31 stat­ing "the min­istry will re­spond once we as­cer­tain the rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion."

On Wednes­day, Hinds stat­ed the min­istry was still in the process of com­pil­ing the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion and the re­sponse will be forth­com­ing once com­plet­ed.

Among the ques­tions asked were: How many res­i­den­tial and agri­cul­tur­al leas­es were dis­trib­uted since the clo­sure of Ca­roni 1975 Ltd, and how many sites re­main out­stand­ing for dis­tri­b­u­tion? What is caus­ing the de­lay in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the out­stand­ing leas­es and has the min­istry set a time line for the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the re­main­ing leas­es?

Calls to the pres­i­dent of the All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers' Trade Union Nir­van Ma­haraj went unan­swered while a What­sApp mes­sage was not read.