Chester Sam­bra­no

Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Camille Robin­son-Reg­is has pre­sent­ed Let­ters of Ap­point­ment to the Chair­man and Mem­bers of the Land Set­tle­ment Com­mit­tee.

This took place at a brief cer­e­mo­ny at the Min­istry’s Head Of­fice, South Quay, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

Mem­bers were ap­point­ed, in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sion of sec­tions 7 and 8 of the State Land (Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure) Act, Chap. 57:05, to pro­vide over­sight of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency’s op­er­a­tions for a pe­ri­od of one (1) year.

They new board com­pris­es of Wayne In­nis, Chair­man, Al­lan Meiguel, Vice Chair­man and mem­bers Courte­nay Le­gendre, Fay­ola Mer­rique, Jonathan Soo Hon, Mar­i­lyn Dun­can, Pe­ter Goodridge, Ruhul Ram­per­sad and Ed­mund Phillips.

The core man­date of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) is to pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty of tenure to el­i­gi­ble squat­ters; fa­cil­i­tate the ac­qui­si­tion of lease­hold ti­tles by both squat­ters and ten­ants in des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas and, to pro­vide for the es­tab­lish­ment of land set­tle­ment ar­eas.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, in re­cent times, the man­date of the LSA has been broad­ened to in­clude the in­tro­duc­tion of the Ten­an­cy Pro­gramme, ex­e­cu­tion of the Gov­ern­ment Aid­ed Self-Help Hous­ing Pro­gramme and the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme on be­half of the Min­istry; as well as the de­vel­op­ment of res­i­den­tial lots for for­mer PETROTRIN em­ploy­ees, as part of the PETROTRIN Res­i­den­tial Lots Pro­gramme.

The Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) is al­so re­spon­si­ble for the de­vel­op­ment of agri­cul­tur­al plots for youth of the Youth Agri­cul­ture Home­stead Pro­gramme (YAHP) of the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vices.

Ad­dress­ing the new­ly ap­point­ed mem­bers, Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is said, “Like any oth­er or­ga­ni­za­tion, the LSA is not with­out its chal­lenges but there­in lies the op­por­tu­ni­ty for you to utilise your skills and ex­per­tise, to mit­i­gate the chal­lenges and de­vise new and in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions to im­pact on the LSA’s abil­i­ty to ful­fil its man­date.”

She fur­ther stat­ed that the Min­istry and the LSA “re­main com­mit­ted to work­ing to­geth­er to im­prove the lives of the cit­i­zens we are called to serve; and I could not have cho­sen a more out­stand­ing group of pro­fes­sion­als to be in charge of this man­date.”