Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has strong­ly de­nied claims that the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) is seek­ing to hand over No Man’s Land to a pri­vate de­vel­op­er, a move that would re­sult in ven­dors be­ing forced to va­cate the area.

In­stead, Au­gus­tine said the busi­ness­man has of­fered to up­grade the vend­ing fa­cil­i­ties at No Man’s Land free of charge, once the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly can main­tain the site.

Ac­cu­sa­tions that the Au­gus­tine ad­min­is­tra­tion is en­gag­ing in clan­des­tine deal­ings in­volv­ing the pop­u­lar tourist hotspot have been cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia.

One mes­sage claims, “I just re­ceived some in­for­ma­tion that Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine has en­tered in­to an arrange­ment with a busi­ness­man (name redact­ed) and gave him No Man’s Land, part of the same area that would have in­clud­ed the San­dals Re­sort project. In­for­ma­tion com­ing to hand is that ven­dors were told they would have to va­cate and stop ply­ing their trade.”

Speak­ing at a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty meet­ing in Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill on Mon­day night, Au­gus­tine sought to di­rect­ly ad­dress and dis­pel those claims.

“Let me be pel­lu­cid­ly clear, this Chief Sec­re­tary, this Gov­ern­ment and this ex­ec­u­tive has not giv­en any lands to any pri­vate de­vel­op­er down at No Man’s Land.”

He went on to ex­plain, “A pri­vate de­vel­op­er, a pri­vate busi­ness­man came to the THA and said, look, he could help the ven­dors down on no man’s land to en­sure they have ap­pro­pri­ate fa­cil­i­ties to sell the food from. So they will get ac­cess to wa­ter, toi­let fa­cil­i­ties, and they will meet in­ter­na­tion­al health and safe­ty prac­tices. He of­fered to pro­vide it to the peo­ple of To­ba­go for free at no cost to the peo­ple of To­ba­go and no cost to the Gov­ern­ment, and he want­ed to know if he pro­vides it, if the THA will take over the main­te­nance of it.”

The TPP leader said he told the busi­ness­man to speak with the ven­dors and then pro­vide his pro­pos­al to the THA.

“The gen­tle­man has not even pro­vid­ed us with a pro­pos­al as yet for us to even make a de­ci­sion. So how we reach to them spread­ing pro­pa­gan­da on the man name say­ing that some­how we sign away land and we’re putting off ven­dors.”

Au­gus­tine said if, in fact they were evict­ing ven­dors from No Man’s Land, then they would have got­ten a le­gal let­ter from the THA.

“And I’m sure no ven­dor, no pro­pri­etor in No Man’s Land re­ceive any no­tice from the THA that they must leave. So, it is a to­tal fab­ri­ca­tion that we are putting out peo­ple to give one pri­vate per­son land in No Man’s Land.”

Fur­ther­more, Au­gus­tine claimed that when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) want­ed to build the San­dals re­sort there, they did not vest the land in the THA.

“The land is not even vest­ed in the THA. So how can we give away what is not vest­ed in the THA?”

How­ev­er, when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed No Man’s Land ahead of Au­gus­tine’s state­ment, ven­dors ex­pressed un­ease.

They said a man of East In­di­an de­scent, whom they be­lieve to be a con­trac­tor, told them work would be­gin with­in three weeks, in­clud­ing the de­mo­li­tion of their ex­ist­ing sheds and the con­struc­tion of new stalls.

Ac­cord­ing to the ven­dors, they were al­so in­formed that they would be re­quired to pay a rental fee, some­thing they say has nev­er ap­plied be­fore. The ven­dors voiced dis­ap­point­ment, in­sist­ing they have long shoul­dered the cost of main­tain­ing the area af­ter it was left aban­doned. They be­lieve the gov­ern­ment has now recog­nised the mon­ey-mak­ing po­ten­tial of No Man’s Land and is seek­ing to prof­it from it with­out con­sul­ta­tion.