Shal­iza?Has­sanali

In the last eight months, hun­dreds of squat­ters have en­croached on State lands in the San­gre Grande and Point Fortin ar­eas.

The land grab­bing in these two dis­tricts has now be­come a ma­jor con­cern.

The fact that the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands' po­si­tion be­came va­cant last May with the re­tire­ment of Ian Fletch­er has on­ly in­ten­si­fied the squat­ting prob­lem.

Yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Fish­eries, Clarence Ramb­harat con­firmed in a text mes­sage that Clyde Watche has been ap­point­ed to act as Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands.

Watche, who has the pow­er to con­tain squat­ting, yes­ter­day re­fused to take a call from the T&T Guardian.

His sec­re­tary, who iden­ti­fied her­self as Ms Son­ny, ad­vised our news­pa­per to speak to the min­istry's com­mu­ni­ca­tion of­fi­cer Brent Zephyrine, who did not re­spond to a voice mes­sage on his cell phone.

Weeks be­fore last Sep­tem­ber 7 gen­er­al elec­tion, squat­ters start­ed in­vad­ing forest­ed ar­eas and ex­ist­ing squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties in Va­len­cia/San­gre Grande/Matu­ra which has a pop­u­la­tion of 10,000 land grab­bers, while Point Fortin is an­oth­er dis­trict in which they have set­tled.

In 2010, for­mer CEO of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) Dr Allen Sam­my had es­ti­mat­ed the squat­ting pop­u­la­tion in T&T to be 200,000.

Of the 200,000 Sam­my stat­ed that 50,000 squat­ting fam­i­lies live on State lands.

Last Ju­ly, for­mer min­is­ter of lands Jairam Seemu­n­gal had re­port­ed that there were 350 squat­ting sites in T&T and over 10,000 squat­ters in the San­gre Grande dis­trict alone.

In the last week, the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed Dam Road Ex­ten­tion and Os­borne Road in Point Fortin which showed a pro­lif­er­a­tion of new squat­ters who erect­ed crude gal­vanised and wood­en struc­tures overnight.

At Kan­galee and along the Va­len­cia stretch new hous­es al­so dot the land­scape, while there has been an ex­pan­sion of makeshift homes at Bois Bande and Ve­ga de Oropouche in San­gre Grande.

There are close to 20 sites on which new squat­ters have en­croached.

Lead­ing up to a gen­er­al elec­tion, peo­ple have a ten­den­cy to in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly grab lands be­cause they feel no ac­tion will be tak­en against them, Guardian un­der­stands.

It hap­pened in 2010 when the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship jumped in­to the gen­er­al elec­tion race.

There was a mad rush for lands in Cashew Gar­dens in Long­denville, where the po­lice had to be called out to re­move them.

"In the last few months we have seen hun­dreds new homes be­ing built on these ex­ist­ing sites. These squat­ters are build­ing make-shifts hous­es faster than the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion," the source said.

Yes­ter­day, for­mer chair­man of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Dr Al­lan Bachan said while squat­ters were pro­hib­it­ed from en­ter­ing pro­tect­ed forest­ed ar­eas in Va­len­cia there had been an in­crease in squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties in San­gre Grande and the Matu­ra dis­tricts.

"The re­al per­son to speak about this is­sue is the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands. It is un­der his ju­ris­dic­tion that squat­ting falls.

"The com­mis­sion­er has the abil­i­ty to go in there and ad­dress these is­sues of squat­ting. A lot of these squat­ters are non-Trinidad na­tion­als who come from Guyana, Africa and some small Caribbean is­lands, and work in gas sta­tions, se­cu­ri­ty firms and su­per­mar­kets for the min­i­mum wage.

"I know for a fact that the squat­ting pop­u­la­tion has been in­creas­ing in San­gre Grande, Matu­ra and the Va­len­cia Stretch," Bachan said.

Some of the squat­ters al­so live with­in near quar­ries in Va­len­cia and Matu­ra that op­er­ate il­le­gal­ly, Bachan said.

"They pro­tect these il­le­gal quar­ry­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and stay out of the pub­lic's sight," Bachan said.

Bachan said up to last year the EMA had worked in tan­dem with the Min­er­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee to iden­ti­fy spots for quar­ry­ing.

"How­ev­er, one of the chal­lenges was the in­va­sion of squat­ters. We have to ad­dress the is­sue of squat­ting. Now that peo­ple are los­ing their jobs squat­ting will no doubt get out of con­trol," he added.

Sev­er­al calls to for­est con­ser­va­tor John­ny Seep­er­sad's cell­phone went unan­swered.

Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald un­der whose purview LSA falls did not re­spond to a text mes­sage al­so.

MORE IN­FO

Ac­cord­ing to the State Lands Act 57:01, "the com­mis­sion­er shall have the man­age­ment of all lands of the State and shall be charged with the pre­ven­tion of squat­ting and en­croach­ment up­on the same and of spoil and in­jury to the woods and forests on such lands, and shall su­per­in­tend the set­tle­ment and al­lot­ment of State lands and the lay­ing out of vil­lage lots in such dis­tricts as the Pres­i­dent from time to time di­rects."

It al­so states that "the com­mis­sion­er shall al­so take pos­ses­sion of, and shall be charged with the care and let­ting and the col­lec­tion of the rents of, all lands which may be­long or es­cheat to, or which by virtue of any Act may be for­feit­ed to and be­come vest­ed in, the State."

The LSA is au­tho­rised un­der the State Land Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure Act, num­ber 25 of 1998, "to pre­vent and con­tain fur­ther squat­ting on State lands and to reg­u­larise el­i­gi­ble ex­ist­ing squat­ters."

"A per­son who is el­i­gi­ble for reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion must have oc­cu­pied a dwelling house on the prop­er­ty pri­or to Jan­u­ary 1, 1998 and ap­plied for a COC be­fore 2000."