Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for San Fer­nan­do West Faris Al-Rawi yes­ter­day rub­bished sug­ges­tions that the hous­ing de­vel­op­ment at Bayshore, Mara­bel­la, set to be­gin in short or­der, is an elec­tion gim­mick.

This as he promised the 2,200 res­i­dents homes and land ten­an­cy ex­act­ly four weeks be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion.

Asked about his promis­es be­ing per­ceived as en­tice­ments by the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ahead of the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, fol­low­ing his ad­dress to res­i­dents at the project’s sod turn­ing, he said: “

That’s why I told you this start­ed sev­er­al years ago. Go back and check your records...in 2016 I start­ed with two homes, so how could that pos­si­bly be an elec­tion gim­mick?”

Less than 24 hours be­fore his ad­dress, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter and the PNM can­di­date for Ch­agua­nas East Clarence Ramb­harat al­so promised squat­ters in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, tenure for the land they were oc­cu­py­ing. At the same event in En­ter­prise, how­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said Gov­ern­ment was still try­ing to dis­suade peo­ple from squat­ting.

Al-Rawi not­ed yes­ter­day that tenure and ten­an­cy were two dif­fer­ent en­ti­ties legal­ly.

Dur­ing his ad­dress, he ex­plained to the res­i­dents that when the project is com­plet­ed they will be able to have ten­an­cy be­gin­ning at “three years and is then con­vert­ed in­to 99 years.”

“When you own your prop­er­ty and you have your ten­an­cy, you can leave it to your chil­dren. You can go to the bank. You can tell your neigh­bour this is my piece of land and that is your piece of land. You can sell your prop­er­ty,” Al-Rawi told the res­i­dents as he paint­ed a pic­ture of their fu­ture af­ter the project.

The AG said the project will be com­plet­ed in six months and will cre­ate 400 homes on 40 acres of land. The phase launched yes­ter­day will be­gin on five acres. He said the land will be mixed-use, of­fer­ing res­i­den­tial liv­ing as well as agri­cul­tur­al farm­ing.

The res­i­dents of the area are main­ly squat­ters and San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo agreed with Al-Rawi’s sen­ti­ments that the project will now al­low for res­i­dents to have ac­cess to bet­ter re­sources and ne­ces­si­ties to up­lift them­selves.

The project is be­ing car­ried out by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UDe­CoTT) and the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA).

How­ev­er, Al-Rawi was un­able to give a cost of the project.