Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray has crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the evic­tion of squat­ters in Ram­jat­tan Trace, say­ing it lacked ma­tu­ri­ty and hu­man­i­ty.

He said the State’s ac­tions high­light the need for a clear hous­ing strat­e­gy while call­ing for the im­me­di­ate halt of all evic­tions.

“The gov­ern­ment must put an im­me­di­ate stop to any ad­di­tion­al evic­tions at Ram­jat­tan Trace, “ Paray said in a re­lease. “Forc­ing fam­i­lies in­to home­less­ness with­out al­ter­na­tive hous­ing is in­hu­mane and reck­less.”

He al­so de­mand­ed that the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands and the Land Set­tle­ment Agency clar­i­fy the le­gal sta­tus of the lands and jus­ti­fy the evic­tion no­tices, de­scrib­ing the cur­rent un­cer­tain­ty as un­ac­cept­able.

“The gov­ern­ment must hold ur­gent con­sul­ta­tions with the res­i­dents of Ram­jat­tan Trace to find a fair and trans­par­ent so­lu­tion. Ig­nor­ing their con­cerns and bull­doz­ing homes have on­ly es­ca­lat­ed ten­sions and deep­ened pub­lic mis­trust,” he said.

As a long-term so­lu­tion, Paray pro­posed planned re­set­tle­ments with prop­er hous­ing and ac­cess to wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty, health­care, and ed­u­ca­tion. He sug­gest­ed grant­i­ng cer­tifi­cates of com­fort and even­tu­al land ti­tles to those liv­ing on the land for more than a decade.

Paray al­so pushed for eco­nom­ic sup­port through job pro­grammes, mi­cro-en­ter­prise zones, and part­ner­ships with in­dus­tries in re­set­tle­ment ar­eas. He warned that evic­tions with­out eco­nom­ic al­ter­na­tives would on­ly deep­en pover­ty.

“With over 60,000 fam­i­lies liv­ing in un­reg­u­lat­ed set­tle­ments na­tion­wide, squat­ting is not a new is­sue. How­ev­er, this ad­min­is­tra­tion’s fail­ure to de­vel­op a struc­tured and hu­mane re­sponse has now turned it in­to a full-blown hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis,” he said.

He urged the gov­ern­ment to treat squat­ting as a hous­ing is­sue rather than a prob­lem to be crushed. Proac­tive poli­cies, tech­no­log­i­cal mon­i­tor­ing, and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, he said, were es­sen­tial to pre­vent­ing fu­ture il­le­gal set­tle­ments.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley and his gov­ern­ment have tak­en a firm stance against squat­ters say­ing they can­not oc­cu­py the land il­le­gal­ly and then try to hold on to it when asked to leave.

Speak­ing on Fri­day at the of­fi­cial rib­bon cut­ting for the City Heights Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment he said: “You can­not run a coun­try like that.”

“There are lots of peo­ple who are liv­ing in the coun­try, and there are pro­grams in the state to sup­port squat­ter reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion. There are pro­grams to as­sist peo­ple. But when we try to or­gan­ise the re­moval of per­sons who are oc­cu­py­ing state lands il­le­gal­ly, then it be­comes a com­plex is­sue, and it is not just about be­ing hu­mane,” Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley main­tained.

Row­ley, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and MP for La Hor­quet­ta/ Tal­paro Fos­ter Cum­mings have all tak­en a strong stand against the squat­ters.

“We make sure that peo­ple do not con­tin­ue to squat on state land,” Robin­son Reg­is said.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­so high­light­ed the en­vi­ron­men­tal and in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenges caused by squat­ting.

“They have been oc­cu­py­ing the first re­serves, quar­ry­ing, and cre­at­ing a sit­u­a­tion that is un­ten­able,” she said.

Cum­mings said it was painful for him to wit­ness the evic­tion of res­i­dents. How­ev­er, he main­tains that the law ap­plies to every­one and ad­vis­es af­fect­ed res­i­dents to ac­quire homes through the prop­er chan­nels.

“I would ad­vise them, and I would even give what­ev­er sup­port I can to rec­om­mend that those who qual­i­fy can be con­sid­ered for that type of in­ter­ven­tion. But it can­not be that we op­er­ate in a law­less man­ner,” he said.