Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Nei­ther the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment nor the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) has any record of any promise made to dis­trib­ute de­vel­oped lots specif­i­cal­ly to the res­i­dents of New Lands Vil­lage.

Act­ing Sen­ate leader Paula Gopee-Scoon stat­ed this yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate, re­ply­ing to UNC sen­a­tor Wade Mark’s queries.

Not­ing the re­port by New Lands Vil­lage res­i­dents that the Land Set­tle­ment Agency gave de­vel­oped res­i­den­tial lots—ini­tial­ly promised to them—to for­mer Petrotrin work­ers, Mark asked what arrange­ments, if any, would now be made for res­i­dents.

Gopee Scoon said, “The Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment recog­nis­es the con­cerns ex­pressed by the res­i­dents of New Lands Vil­lage, Guayagua­yare, re­gard­ing the re­cent al­lo­ca­tion of lots to for­mer Petrotrin em­ploy­ees. We un­der­stand the im­por­tance of trans­paren­cy and fair­ness in the land al­lo­ca­tion process and are ded­i­cat­ed to ad­dress­ing these con­cerns thor­ough­ly.

“It must be not­ed that nei­ther the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment nor the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) has any record of any promise made to dis­trib­ute de­vel­oped lots specif­i­cal­ly to the res­i­dents of New Lands Vil­lage.”

She said all who ap­ply for lands un­der the Gov­ern­ment Aid­ed Self-Help Hous­ing Pro­gramme (GASHHP) are in­formed that al­lo­ca­tions are made through tele­vised live com­put­erised ran­dom se­lec­tion draws.

“This en­sures fair­ness and im­par­tial­i­ty,” she added.

De­tail­ing the pro­gramme, she said it us­es a com­bi­na­tion of self-help and small con­trac­tors to con­struct the hous­es for the se­lect­ed ben­e­fi­cia­ries.

“As with this pro­gramme and the Petrotrin ini­tia­tive, the LSA acts as project man­ag­er and over­sees the in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment of the iden­ti­fied plots,” she added.

“In 2020, the Gov­ern­ment de­ter­mined that, as part of the VSEP for for­mer em­ploy­ees of Petrotrin, per­sons who have nei­ther hous­es nor land would be grant­ed res­i­den­tial plots. The La Sa­vanne and Nurse Trace Com­mu­ni­ties are two com­mu­ni­ties with­in the New Lands Vil­lage. They are the on­ly two ar­eas in that vil­lage where the LSA has un­der­tak­en work and al­lo­cat­ed lots. As of May 2024, 46 lots have been dis­trib­uted un­der this pro­gramme in the La Sa­vanne and Nurse Trace com­mu­ni­ties.”

Gopee-Scoon ad­vised New Lands Vil­lage res­i­dents who are in­ter­est­ed in res­i­den­tial lots to ap­ply un­der the GASHP pro­gramme when it is next ad­ver­tised. Mark asked if the OW­TU, which he said rep­re­sent­ed Petrotrin work­ers, was con­sult­ed be­fore the al­lo­ca­tion of res­i­den­tial lots and if there were in­ten­tions to en­gage them in fu­ture talks.

Gopee-Scoon said OW­TU was not par­ty to the process. She could not con­firm any talks with them on the ini­tia­tive, and it does not in­volve a col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process, so there was no need for talks with OW­TU on the mat­ters that con­cern HDC and LSA.

Nor could she state the num­ber of lots to be giv­en to for­mer Petrotrin work­ers in the next two years. She said she was un­sure if the process was still open.

Two get steel­pan grants

to­talling $736,200

Gopee-Scoon al­so con­firmed that ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the gov­ern­ment’s Steel­pan Man­u­fac­tur­ing grant fund fa­cil­i­ty for the 2023-2024 pe­ri­od are Pan­land Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed, which re­ceived $236,200, and Chrome Fur­nish­ers Lim­it­ed, which re­ceived two tranch­es to­talling $500,000.

She was re­ply­ing to a query from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Suni­ty Ma­haraj for de­tails on the num­ber of steel­pan man­u­fac­tur­ers that re­ceived the grant from Sep­tem­ber 2023 to date.

Gopee-Scoon said Pan­land Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed was ap­proved for $236,200 on Jan­u­ary 2, 2024. Chrome Fur­nish­ers Lim­it­ed was ap­proved on Jan­u­ary 17, 2024, for the first tranche of $250,000 and on May 6, 2024, for the sec­ond tranche of $250,000.