DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day dis­trib­uted 110 res­i­den­tial leas­es to for­mer work­ers of Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed, bring­ing the to­tal to 310 since tak­ing of­fice in April.

The cer­e­mo­ny, held at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s, fea­tured Di­vali-themed hos­pi­tal­i­ty, with guests treat­ed to tra­di­tion­al sweets such as parsad, goolab jamoon, and barfi, along­side In­di­an cul­tur­al per­for­mances.

Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein de­scribed the oc­ca­sion as “an­oth­er promise made and an­oth­er promise kept,” not­ing that many re­cip­i­ents had been wait­ing 22 years to re­ceive their res­i­den­tial lots.

He re­called that 200 leas­es were dis­trib­uted on Au­gust 12 at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, with 2,000 more ex­pect­ed to fol­low. Ac­cord­ing to Ho­sein, sites have al­ready been iden­ti­fied, with work on­go­ing at Ex­change #2 in Cou­va.

Ho­sein said the lots now have statu­to­ry ap­provals, WASA con­nec­tions, street light­ing, and “easy to get” elec­tric­i­ty ac­cess, al­low­ing re­cip­i­ents to qual­i­fy for bank mort­gages to be­gin con­struc­tion.

The min­is­ter blamed the de­lay in lease dis­tri­b­u­tion on the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, say­ing the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EM­B­DC) had “halt­ed works on every sin­gle site and left it in a state of de­cay and rot.”

“From checks with­in the EM­B­DC, in­stead of tak­ing that mon­ey to en­sure that the lands were de­vel­oped so that you can have a place to call home, I am in­formed and I am ad­vised that the EM­B­DC in the last 10 years spent not a dol­lar on one of the sites but they spent over $100 mil­lion dol­lars in le­gal fees to hand pick at­tor­neys, leav­ing you with­out your lands for 22 years,” he said.

Ho­sein added that the sites were “very much de­vel­oped” and could have been hand­ed over long ago.

“But the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, be­cause of spite, ill will, mal­ice, re­fused to give you your lands,” he said, pledg­ing that every for­mer work­er would re­ceive their lot.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the han­dover as “a mo­ment of re­new­al where promise meets pur­pose.”

“Even through 22 years of wait­ing, some in faith, some in qui­et de­spair, some who did not live to see this day, their spir­its are nev­er ever bro­ken,” she said.

For many for­mer Ca­roni work­ers, the event marked the end of decades of un­cer­tain­ty.

Reynold Bal­ram­s­ingh, 63, from Ra­mai Trace, Debe, said he had al­most giv­en up hope of re­ceiv­ing his land. His fa­ther and grand­moth­er both worked in the sug­ar­cane fields, and he him­self spent 23 years at the Cou­va fac­to­ry be­fore be­ing laid off.

“I bought a truck and had no work and had to sell the truck,” he said, de­scrib­ing that pe­ri­od as “a very hard time.”

Bal­ram­s­ingh, who be­gan as a labour­er and rose to a B-class me­chan­ic be­fore ac­cept­ing vol­un­tary sep­a­ra­tion, said he now plans to start build­ing on his plot.

Min­is­ter Ho­sein said the gov­ern­ment is pri­ori­tis­ing res­i­den­tial dis­tri­b­u­tions, with a small­er num­ber of two-acre agri­cul­tur­al plots to be hand­ed over at a lat­er stage.