SEVERAL members of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) on Tuesday joined efforts to restrict the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) from removing Mocha squatters who are hindering construction of the Eccles to Diamond road link.
The squatters placed their bodies across the roadway to block vehicles from accessing the area. The squatters are occupying lands that are a primary area for the road link.
Those gathered with the squatters included Leader of the PNCR Aubrey Norton, and Parliamentarians Coretta McDonald, Nima Flue-Bess and Natasha Singh-Lewis.
“We will stand with the people, we will continue to stand with the people,” Flue-Bess commented.
Over the past few months, extensive work was done by the CH&PA to ensure that the residents were relocated to developed housing schemes, and were compensated on the basis of the market value of their structures.
The process to remove the squatters was done in such a way as to minimise disruption of the families, while making sure that home ownership is legally achieved as a means of building generational wealth.
More than 20 families have relocated, having received full compensation for their properties, and having been given both free house lots and a grace period to facilitate the construction of their new houses.
Some of the residents who were relocated to the Farm-Herstelling housing areas have begun construction of their new homes, while others have already completed theirs.
The five remaining squatters have, however, rejected the government’s offers and continue to occupy the reserve. In a final notice published in the daily newspapers last November, the Ministry of Housing and Water had warned that further action will be taken, given the “harsh, baseless and irrational resistance.”
However, Norton, who is also Leader of the Opposition, had visited the area and urged the five remaining squatters on the reserve to remain, stating that the area is “ancestral lands.”
The government, through the Ministry of Housing and Water, had issued a final warning to the five remaining Mocha squatters, that it will be forced to demolish their structures unless they move immediately.
