RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Even as she de­nounced squat­ting as il­le­gal, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is says the gov­ern­ment will be con­struct­ing 500 res­i­den­tial units this year for squat­ters who oc­cu­py both State and pri­vate lands.

Speak­ing at a keys dis­tri­b­u­tion held at San Fer­nan­do City Hall au­di­to­ri­um on Wednes­day, Robin­son-Reg­is said the 500 ben­e­fi­cia­ries will in­clude peo­ple from the LSA's Squat­ter Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion Pro­gramme as well as per­sons liv­ing on pri­vate lands who qual­i­fy un­der the LSA's Home Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme cri­te­ria.

She said peo­ple who squat are break­ing the law.

"The gov­ern­ment can­not al­low the il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion to per­sist. Land own­er­ship is not a guess­ing game—whether State or pri­vate­ly owned, squat­ting is un­law­ful," she said. Cog­nisant of the plight of poor squat­ters Robin­son-Reg­is said reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion will con­tin­ue.

"For Fis­cal 2025, we have set a tar­get of build­ing 500 new res­i­den­tial units. This un­der­scores our com­mit­ment to ad­dress­ing hous­ing needs across the coun­try," Robin­son-Reg­is said.

She not­ed that con­struc­tion was un­der­way on 76 units, with con­tracts signed for an­oth­er 126 units, which are ex­pect­ed to be­gin soon. The pro­ject­ed cost of these units is $113,472,320.

The keys to 50 units were dis­trib­uted to ben­e­fi­cia­ries in Ch­agua­nas, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, Ma­yaro, Princes Town, San Fer­nan­do, and Siparia, she said.

In the com­ing weeks, the Min­is­ter re­vealed an­oth­er 48 units will be al­lo­cat­ed to res­i­dents in Ari­ma, Diego Mar­tin, San Juan/Laven­tille, San­gre Grande, and Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co.

Be­yond hous­ing, Robin­son-Reg­is said the gov­ern­ment was rolling out 55 in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment projects this fis­cal year, with an es­ti­mat­ed in­vest­ment of $54,447,000.

"These projects will fo­cus on road­works, drainage, and se­cu­ri­ty en­hance­ments in ar­eas in­clud­ing Ari­ma, Cara­po, Waller­field, Moru­ga, En­ter­prise, Mor­vant, Point Fortin, Cap de Ville, Todds Road, In­di­an Walk, and Bon Air North," Robin­son-Reg­is added.

Ad­dress­ing re­cent pub­lic con­cerns about squat­ting, Robin­son-Reg­is said, "The gov­ern­ment has nev­er ig­nored the is­sue of squat­ting. We have ap­proached it with struc­tured poli­cies and long-term so­lu­tions, not tem­po­rary po­lit­i­cal fix­es."

She point­ed out that the LSA, es­tab­lished un­der the State Land (Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure) Act of 1998, has been in­stru­men­tal in man­ag­ing squat­ter set­tle­ments and pro­vid­ing le­gal av­enues for land and hous­ing ac­cess.

"There are those spread­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion, but the LSA has been work­ing on the ground to reg­u­larise squat­ter set­tle­ments and pro­vide leas­es to el­i­gi­ble fam­i­lies. Res­i­dents of ar­eas like Pine Set­tle­ment, Windy Hill, and Cashew Gar­dens have ben­e­fit­ed from es­sen­tial ser­vices such as potable wa­ter, prop­er roads, drainage, elec­tric­i­ty, and san­i­ta­tion," she ex­plained.

She al­so spoke about the im­pact of squat­ting on the en­vi­ron­ment.

"It dis­rupts ur­ban plan­ning, strains util­i­ties, and en­croach­es on vi­tal lands," Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is re­vealed.

Re­cent­ly, Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, Paula Drakes re­vealed that unau­tho­rized de­vel­op­ments have en­croached up­on 50 to 60 per cent of for­est re­serves in North and Cen­tral Trinidad.

LSA Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Haz­ar Ho­sein al­so dis­closed that a re­cent sur­vey of the Va­len­cia and Long Stretch for­est re­serves un­cov­ered over 5,000 squat­ter struc­tures on just 4,000 acres—one-third of the re­serves in that area. He said the agency planned to sur­vey the re­main­ing 8,000 acres soon.