OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has sig­nalled an ur­gent move to ad­dress long-stand­ing land tenure chal­lenges in To­ba­go, as it re­vealed that more than $150 mil­lion in state lands has al­ready been trans­ferred to cit­i­zens across Trinidad through the gov­ern­ment-ac­cel­er­at­ed reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion pro­gramme.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs and MP for Barataria/San Juan, Sad­dam Ho­sein, dur­ing a Cer­tifi­cate of Com­fort dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny held at the Barataria Re­gion­al Com­plex yes­ter­day.

Ho­sein said To­ba­go’s land is­sues are now firm­ly on the min­istry’s agen­da, fol­low­ing re­cent de­vel­op­ments on the sis­ter isle.

“We are not stop­ping in Trinidad. We are go­ing in To­ba­go,” Ho­sein said, not­ing that the min­istry has al­ready held dis­cus­sions with the Chief Sec­re­tary on the mat­ter. “To­ba­go has a very se­ri­ous is­sue with land tenure, and the Min­istry of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs will be work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to treat with those is­sues.”

The cer­e­mo­ny marked the dis­tri­b­u­tion of 100 Cer­tifi­cates of Com­fort for peo­ple along the East-West Cor­ri­dor, mak­ing it the sec­ond such dis­tri­b­u­tion since Ho­sein was sworn in as min­is­ter in May 2025. An­oth­er 100 cer­tifi­cates were is­sued dur­ing the Christ­mas pe­ri­od to cit­i­zens across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“For many peo­ple, they were wait­ing 10 to 15 years—just to have a piece of pa­per in their hands to say, ‘This is mine,’” Ho­sein said. “To­day, this UNC Gov­ern­ment is restor­ing dig­ni­ty to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He cred­it­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the pol­i­cy frame­work that led to the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion ini­tia­tive, re­call­ing her work as min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in cham­pi­oning vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens fac­ing evic­tion.

He out­lined the tan­gi­ble out­comes achieved in a mat­ter of months: 200 Cer­tifi­cates of Com­fort dis­trib­uted na­tion­wide, and 300 res­i­den­tial leas­es is­sued to for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Ltd work­ers be­tween Au­gust and Oc­to­ber 2025.

With the av­er­age mar­ket val­ue of a res­i­den­tial lot es­ti­mat­ed at $500,000, Ho­sein said the min­istry has de­liv­ered ap­prox­i­mate­ly $150 mil­lion worth of land to cit­i­zens.

“Some of these peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly for­mer Ca­roni work­ers, were wait­ing over 22 years for their leas­es,” he said.

The pro­gramme is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue next week in Cou­va South, where the min­istry in­tends to dis­trib­ute 300 ad­di­tion­al res­i­den­tial leas­es at the Ex­change II site.

“By the end of Jan­u­ary, more than 800 cit­i­zens will have le­gal doc­u­ments in their pos­ses­sion for land they can fi­nal­ly call home,” Ho­sein said.

He added that the min­istry’s next ob­jec­tive is to move re­cip­i­ents from Cer­tifi­cates of Com­fort to full deeds of lease, en­sur­ing land can be passed on as gen­er­a­tional wealth.

“Land is em­pow­er­ment,” Ho­sein said. “This Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that em­pow­er­ment reach­es every cit­i­zen—whether in Trinidad or in To­ba­go.”