SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

For­mer food pro­duc­tion min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath has found him­self the vic­tim of an on­go­ing land fraud is­sue and while re­ports have been made to the T&T Po­lice (TTPS) re­lat­ing to the iden­ti­ty of the il­le­gal oc­cu­pant, Bharath said the land grab­ber is yet to be de­tained and charged in re­la­tion to the of­fence.

Bharath, who served un­der Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­min­is­tra­tion con­firmed that the sev­en-acre par­cel at Ravine Sable was be­queathed by his grand­moth­er for “all her grand­chil­dren.”

Bharath is one of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the land.

He broke his si­lence on the heels of then agri­cul­ture min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat rais­ing an alarm over a large num­ber of fraud and cor­rup­tion mat­ters tak­ing place with re­spect to lands and a promise this week by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that land fraud mat­ters were cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the TTPS.

Ramb­harat, who re­signed from Row­ley’s Cab­i­net on March 16, is ex­pect­ed to take up a po­si­tion in an en­ti­ty called the Sin­gle Point Land Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty to ad­dress prob­lems re­lat­ing to the use of State lands.

Land man­age­ment will al­so be brought un­der Row­ley’s purview.

“It is a na­tion­al epi­dem­ic. I am putting things in place to deal with all the breach­es,” Row­ley was quot­ed in the T&T Guardian two weeks ago.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to land fraud and cor­rup­tion by the Fraud Squad and An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions led to the ar­rest and charge of four men last month, three of whom were Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture em­ploy­ees.

The of­fi­cers al­so seized forged doc­u­ments pur­port­ed­ly is­sued by the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, a stamp and seal.

Pressed to com­ment on the on­go­ing land scam and cor­rup­tion be­ing un­earthed, Bharath replied.

“Ac­tu­al­ly I am a vic­tim of that (land grab­bing) right now.”

He ex­plained that his grand­moth­er who passed away left sev­en acres of pri­vate land in Ravine Sable “for her grand­chil­dren,” in­clud­ing him “for which we have the deed.”

Three years ago, Bharath said to their shock they no­ticed the land was be­ing cleared.

The po­lice were called in but no one was caught tres­pass­ing on the prop­er­ty.

Then the land was fenced by the il­le­gal oc­cu­pant.

Bharath said that each time the po­lice vis­it­ed the land no one was found.

“The po­lice ba­si­cal­ly say they have to catch them in the act. So, it has been a cat and mouse game be­tween the po­lice and the per­son tres­pass­ing on the land.”

Ad­mit­ting that land fraud has be­come preva­lent, Bharath said “the is­sue is if I am hav­ing prob­lems get­ting the po­lice to in­ter­vene, you could imag­ine some­body else who does not have that kind of abil­i­ty to pick up the phone and call some­body.”

As to who has been be­hind the land grab?

Bharath has re­cent­ly chaired two ses­sions of a plat­form called “T&T Speaks” one of which took place on Sat­ur­day at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya.

“We be­lieve is some­body from the area who has been sell­ing lands to peo­ple. And they may have sold this land or they are par­celling it out for sale. We have no proof,” Bharath said.

Bharath said fam­i­ly mem­bers who live in the area are afraid to in­ter­vene for fear of be­ing killed or wound­ed.

“You go and con­front some­body and they chop you and shoot you. And peo­ple as a re­sult just stay away. My cousins have said that they are not go­ing to con­front the peo­ple when they see them.”

Bharath said the tres­pass­er feels em­bold­ened while the own­er feels un­pro­tect­ed by the le­gal sys­tem.

“A num­ber of peo­ple in this coun­try un­der­go that sit­u­a­tion...where peo­ple il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­py their lands and even­tu­al­ly take it. And then they go and get a false deed for the land which makes it even more dif­fi­cult par­tic­u­lar­ly where you have el­der­ly peo­ple in the coun­try who own lands and their chil­dren aren’t around.”

In many in­stances, he said, these peo­ple did not have the re­sources to deal with the mat­ter legal­ly.

Bharath could not put a val­ue on the land but he said it would be worth a pret­ty pen­ny.

“When my grand­moth­er died the area was vir­tu­al­ly un­in­hab­it­ed but over the years a num­ber of large hous­es have been built up in the area. So of course, the land val­ue has in­creased sig­nif­i­cant­ly.”

Bharath de­scribed the in­ci­dent as “shock­ing.”

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