There has been an “invasion” of squatters on land deemed forest reserve which is posing a major challenge to the Land Settlement Agency (LSA), so much so that the agency is calling for a land court.
The most recent figure has shown there are 55,000 families who are squatting amounting to over 200,000 people.
But this is a reflection of a larger problem as the organisation’s previous board took it upon itself to implement a policy to grant certificates of comfort to people living in such places and even along the riverbanks although this was against the law. So said the LSA’s chairman Ossley Francis at a Joint Select Committee (JSC) meeting held in Parliament yesterday.
The Toco/Sangre Grande constituency has the highest concentration of squatters, including those living on forest reserves, compared to the rest of the country
Over the last five years there has been a growth of squatters in protected areas.
“Prior to 2010 the LSA gave no certificate of comfort to squatters in the forest reserve and on river banks simply to contain squatting and the act says on these reserves squatting must not be encouraged.
“The outgoing LSA Board took a decision to give squatters certificates of comfort for as long as they live on state lands regardless of whether they live on the riverbanks or on the reserves,” Francis said.
He said the present board would be seeking to apply the law to prevent this.
Asked whether relocation was an option, Francis said the act made it clear that the LSA must find a place on a designated area to accommodate those given certificates of comfort.
“We cannot now withdraw it...it is now in their possession and not only in Sangre Grande and Valencia but it is rampant throughout the country,” Francis added.
Asked who gave the directive regarding the policy to grant squatters permission to live in areas which were not permitted, Francis chose not to publicly reveal that person’s name.
But he said to make matters worse, a High Court judgment was handed down by Justice Carol Gobin in 2011 which said the LSA had no authority to go on state lands to demolish illegal structures.
“The powers that we have with respect to squatting and powers we don’t have...between 2002 to 2010 we made a brilliant attempt to curtail squatting and having lost that matter squatting became rampant,” Francis said.
Maintaining that aquifers and hillsides were in grave danger, Francis said at Farm Road in Curepe for instance there were natural springs and if the land was dug even at four feet water would spout.
But he said under the last administration squatters were regularised.
And new squatters were now so brazen that they were moving in on areas even while development of sites, comprising full infrastructure, was being done by the LSA.
This is the case in Penal where a vacant area was earmarked for a detention pond but squatters who have claimed ownership of the land have taken control of it.
On how could the LSA’s success be measured as opposed to expenditure spent on advertising and public education, Francis said there was nothing much the LSA could show.
“The public knows very well that the LSA cannot break or demolish their houses. That is the role and function of the Commissioner of State Lands in accordance with the law,” Francis added.
He said the commissioner and the various regional corporations were repeatedly advised by the LSA on a regular basis of all the squatters in the country but nothing or very little was done.
The LSA’s chairman Hazard Hosein said since 2013 weekly notices have been sent to the commissioner and the corporations and that 4,000 notices have been issued of illegal structures.
“However, many of these 4,000 were dealt with. I can’t count any of them,” Hosein said.
He said some 23,000 squatters have applied for regularisation and to date some 8,000 have been given certificates of comfort. But to move from a certificate of comfort to actually obtaining a deed was a lengthy process as it must first be deemed whether the land was public or private.
Financial resources also posed a problem. For the agency the cost to develop one lot of land was estimated at between $130,000 and $160,000.
But at the end of the day the squatter got a subsidised price.
Regarding manpower, he said the LSA did not have its full complement of 32 officers to monitor squatters while there were “hundreds of officers at the Commissioner of State Lands and at the Foresty Division who were also responsible for patrolling.”