MINISTER of Housing and Water, Mr. Irfaan Ali yesterday met with squatters of the Industrial Backlands in Ruimveldt, Georgetown, called ‘John Fernandes Drive’ and has promised that an assessment of the entire area will be carried out to determine the way forward.
The minister along with the Director of Settlements Regularization and Upgrading Department, Mr. Gladwin Charles met with the squatters of the area which have approximately 52 houses with persons living there since 1983.
“I am here more today to listen to your issues. The whole issue of squatting and regularization in this area has been a long and outstanding issue, and I know you have made several attempts to engage Government and other persons in having this issue resolve,” he stated.
He said the Government believes strongly that people’s involvement in decision making and resolving problem is critical, adding, “We believe strongly that when we have consensus or when we have dialogue with each other, we can have the best solution for our community problems.”
He pointed out, “Sometimes the solution might not be one that everyone expects but the solution might be one that is best for the community.”
Ali urged the residents to separate individual issues and work towards the community issues because “we can’t resolve the issues here in terms of regularization from an individual perspective”.
“We have to do it from a community perspective, and we have had many instances and lots of experiences across the country in dealing with issues like these where the best solution comes from the involvement of the community itself,” he stressed.
He cited that the Railway Embankment and Stanleytown drainage reserve as recent examples where they had successful engagement and interaction with the community in bringing “a long term solution for the people.”
“In making the decision or in outlining your own problems, some critical things must be paramount or must be very important – that is you health, well-being, and living conditions,” he insisted.
“These are critical things for us because whatever decision we take must not in any way compromise the health of yourself or your children – we all strive to have improvement in our lives, we all strive to have betterment and all of us would have struggled and we want our children, our grandchildren to have better life than we have, and that is why you will find most times in the struggle to regularize and to uplift communities, we have the older folks who are very vocal and energetic in working towards improvement of living conditions,” he observed.
“ I am here to listen to you and to listen to some of your problems and for you to explain to me how you see the problem, and what you want to propose as a community as a means of moving forward,” he assured.
But, he warned that regularizations can have some consequences, since some persons are on ‘zero tolerance’ zones like main drainage reserves and other things.
Acknowledging that the major issues is regularization, he said, “One of the challenges we have in this area is that there are various owners of various plots of land, some transported ownership is in private entity name because we have the plan here, and some is in Government name,” he stated.
After listening to the concerns by the residents, Minister Ali decided that a conditional assessment of the area will be done, an approach to which the residents readily agreed supported.
He said Mr. Charles is going to lead the team from the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) which will also include representatives from the ministry’s engineering section, Ministries of Public Works and Local Government and, maybe, the Environmental Protection Agency.
He said an assessment of the area will be done to, first of all, verify ownership, and ensure that all the minimum standards are met in terms of regularization.
“We just can’t go into an area and regularize, since there is some zero-tolerance zone that we will not be in a position to do anything,” he explained.
He said the team is going to conduct an assessment and within three to four weeks, they are going to have a comprehensive report on the entire area, at which time another community meeting will be held.
Minister Ali explained that if the area is not regularized then it becomes difficult for the administration to bring infrastructure like roads, electricity and water.
“If the area is regularized and it is formulized according to the housing plan in a structured manner then, of course, the Government would not shy away from investing and uplifting the living conditions of the people,” he maintained.
Against this backdrop, he reminded that the Government is building more than 1,000 community roads across the country at this moment.
He also promised to have a ‘walk around’ the community soon to have a full understanding of what is happening.
“One of the important things that the community would have to understand is that there must be compromise. Compromise will have to be from both sides – from our side and from your side – if we are to find a common solution and a common way forward,” he emphasised.
He said his ministry looks forward to working with the community in having the initial assessment done to, at least, have a common position in moving forward for the community.
During the meeting, it was also disclosed that City Council had, indeed, send some persons to live in the area, but noted that at present, the Council doesn’t visit the area.
One resident expressing appreciation to the Minister for visiting the community, and the initiative, highlighting that the main issue is regularization, pleading, “We are here to ask you for that commitment or if you can grant us that help in terms of regularization – that is the main issue around here”.
Another resident assured that the houses are situated in an organized manner, hence, there is no disruption of activities being carried out.
It was also disclosed that majority of persons have electricity supply, and there were also complaints about the dusk and the area being swampy and muddy when rain falls.