Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert MP has con­firmed that ap­proval has been grant­ed for the pay­ment of com­pen­sa­tion to an ad­di­tion­al fif­teen prop­er­ty own­ers in To­ba­go, whose prop­er­ties are be­ing ac­quired for the con­struc­tion of a new Air­port Ter­mi­nal and as­so­ci­at­ed Works at the A.N.R Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued joint­ly with Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, As­sem­bly­man An­cil Den­nis, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter re­ports that pay­ments al­ready have been made to sev­er­al oth­er prop­er­ty own­ers.

“To date, eighty (80) prop­er­ty own­ers have ne­go­ti­at­ed and set­tled with the State at a to­tal cost of ap­prox­i­mate­ly one hun­dred and twen­ty-eight mil­lion dol­lars ($128,000,000.00),” Min­is­ter Im­bert states in the re­lease.

“These com­pen­sa­tions now rep­re­sent 19.7 acres of the 53 acres of land re­quired for the con­struc­tion of the new ter­mi­nal, in­clud­ing sev­en (7) com­mer­cial, fif­teen (15) res­i­den­tial and five (5) mixed (home/busi­ness) prop­er­ties,” the min­is­ter ex­plains.

He adds: “The Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO), on be­half of the State, is con­tin­u­ing to is­sue pay­ments of com­pen­sa­tion through its Land Ac­qui­si­tion Con­sul­tant, ACQ & As­so­ciates to the re­spec­tive prop­er­ty own­ers.”

The re­lease states that prop­er­ty own­ers who have set­tled with the State will be con­tact­ed by ACQ and As­so­ciates for the ex­e­cu­tion of le­gal in­dem­ni­ty agree­ments and col­lec­tion of pay­ments.

It al­so notes that the State will en­ter and take pos­ses­sion of set­tled emp­ty lands as soon as com­pen­sa­tion is paid.

In ad­di­tion, prop­er­ty own­ers who are yet to com­mence the ne­go­ti­a­tion and set­tle­ment process are be­ing en­cour­aged to con­tact ACQ and As­so­ciates at (868) 723-7475 and (868) 342-8086, to make ap­point­ments for ne­go­ti­a­tion meet­ings.