Dear Editor,
The story reported in the media a few days ago, in which the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC)Commissioner Trevor Benn, said that the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission re-claimed 1000 acres of lands that had been leased to four business persons behind the Mocha community, further explains why a reported 25,000 house lot applicants could not have been granted lots for home building.

Editor, whoever those business persons are, I am certain that they belong to the friends’ and cronies’ clique of the former People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government.
What was even more revealing about Commissioner Benn’s statement was the fact that the reclamation enabled a reported 200 house lots to be afforded to persons. He also said that there was a community resident, whose plot of land had also been a part of the acreage in possession of the business persons. I am sure that this would have been returned to the rightful owner.

By any margin, this is indeed very wonderful, but even more satisfying that these worthy persons would now be able to fulfill their life’s dream for themselves and families. Of course, credit must be given for a social strategy that did gave many Guyanese a home of their own. But for all the headline propaganda of housing the nation, how does the former PPP/C government explain vast acreages being given to the very rich, while the less fortunate could not have had their years old applications processes. And this include a fraction of the Sophia squatters, on whose protest bandwagon, the opposition propagandists were attempting to join to protest the CH&PA action of removing squatters off reserves in the Sophia community. What hypocrites! What political weather cocks!
Editor, without recourse to statistics, I have always posited that there had been enough land in the Demerara constituency for there to have so many outstanding land applicants. But we have gradually been able to understand this contradiction. Any state housing programme must focus as a matter of priority on those who need a home.
For all the criticisms that have been levelled at the great Forbes Burnham, his housing

programme proved to be visionary, because of the self-help strategy that offered thousands of working class Guyanese homes. The results are there as a monument to those who have attempted to downplay one of his accomplishments.
Never in a million years would Burnham, who had a greater love for country than those PPP/C hypocrites professed, would have allowed persons, irrespective of who they are, and how much money they possess, to profiteer on such an important national need as housing. Never!

I have no doubt, that there are many, many more cases of such persons being allotted leases for acreages that have not been put to use for whatever purposes stated. Just imagine that the Commission still being owed hundreds of millions for lease land payments. I am of the view that since housing is one of life’s most critical essentials that the GL&SC must continue to apply the reclamation law, as it did with the Mocha case. And where there have been outstanding lease payments, over a period of time – those lands also should be reclaimed, particularly where there is no activity on the acreages. I would hope that in the latter instance, that there are laws that can apply.
Regards
Earl Hamilton