Sto­ry by SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Squat­ters liv­ing in the Ch­agua­nas East con­stituen­cy of En­ter­prise are ex­pect­ed to get tenure for the land they are oc­cu­py­ing.

The promise comes from Sen­a­tor Clarence Ramb­harat, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter and the PNM’s Can­di­date for Ch­agua­nas East. He was, at the time, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, when his cam­paign band­wag­on rolled in­to Point Pleas­ant Park, Cunu­pia.

LAND TENURE IM­POR­TANT—RAMB­HARAT

Ramb­harat said Cab­i­net has agreed to ac­quire some 200 acres of land in En­ter­prise, on which 1,500 fam­i­lies cur­rent­ly are squat­ting. He said the State had been in ne­go­ti­a­tions with the es­tate of Bhadase Sagan Ma­haraj, own­er of the prop­er­ty, but those ne­go­ti­a­tions had bro­ken down.

The agri­cul­ture min­is­ter told Guardian Me­dia that the next move was com­pul­so­ry ac­qui­si­tion and the fund­ing would come from the IADB to put in in­fra­struc­ture in those com­mu­ni­ties af­ter sur­veys were un­der­tak­en.

PNM Chaguanas East candidate, Agriculture Minister Senator Clarence Rambarat (left), speaks with a resident during his canvassing in Point Pleasant Park, Cunupia, on Wednesday. (Image: SHASTRI BOODAN)

SHASTRI BOODAN

The PNM can­di­date al­so not­ed that Ch­agua­nas East suf­fers from poor drainage and garbage col­lec­tion is­sues, for which he blamed the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

“The over­ar­ch­ing is­sue is that of land tenure in En­ter­prise, for ex­am­ple, which is a sig­nif­i­cant part of the con­stituen­cy,” he ex­plained. “On the east­ern side of En­ter­prise you have the long stand­ing is­sue of the lands owned by Bhadase Sagan Ma­haraj who died in the 1970’s. It’s al­most 200 acres, and you have 1,500 fam­i­lies liv­ing there. On the west­ern side,” Sen­a­tor Ramb­harat said, “you have state lands that have been oc­cu­pied for a while, and which are in the process of be­ing reg­u­lar­ized by the Land Set­tle­ment Agency. So land tenure is a very crit­i­cal part of the work that has to be done in this con­stituen­cy,” he added.

Sen­a­tor Ramb­harat said he has been do­ing work with the LSA on the land tenure is­sue.

“We have made sig­nif­i­cant progress on the Bhadase Lands, and we will al­so be mak­ing some an­nounce­ments soon con­cern­ing that.”

The PNM can­di­date is con­fi­dent the par­ty will re­cap­ture the Ch­agua­nas East seat from the UNC. The seat was held by the PNM’s Mustapha Ab­dul Hamid un­til 2010.

MO­HIT SLAMS RAM­BARAT

Mean­while, Ch­agua­nas May­or Van­dana Mo­hit, who is al­so the UNC’s Ch­agua­nas East can­di­date, knocked Sen­a­tor Ramb­harat for his com­ments on the poor drainage and garbage col­lec­tion prob­lem in the con­stituen­cy.

May­or Mo­hit said re­gion­al bod­ies have been de­lib­er­ate­ly starved of re­sources by the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

She spoke with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, at the open­ing of her Con­stituen­cy Of­fices at South­ern Main Road, Cunu­pia, just north of Has­sarath Road.

The UNC can­di­date ques­tioned whether her PNM coun­ter­part on­ly re­cent­ly had be­come aware of the prob­lem.

“Af­ter so long, this can­di­date just re­al­ized this,” she stat­ed. “My Bor­ough has been work­ing very hard with lim­it­ed re­sources and do­ing our best. I am sure this can­di­date would be very well aware of that.”

UNC Chaguanas East candidate, Chaguanas Mayor Vandana Mohit, at the opening of her campaign offices at Cunupia, on Wednesday. (Image: SHASTRI BOODAN)

SHASTRI BOODAN

May­or Mo­hit said she was in the elec­tion fight to win the seat for the UNC, and that no amount of cam­paign promis­es would see the seat re­vert­ing to the PNM.

She point­ed out that she was a res­i­dent of the com­mu­ni­ty who was ful­ly aware of the needs of Ch­agua­nas East.

Dur­ing her speech at her cam­paign head­quar­ters, the UNC can­di­date praised all her sup­port­ers who as­sist­ed in her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

“From the age of 16, through all my vic­to­ries to the age of 29, as a small per­son, no one ever looked at me as a lit­tle girl. They al­ways said to me—you al­ways said to me—the lit­tle girl with the Li­oness voice; the voice spoke for you.”

The UNC can­di­date told Guardian Me­dia that the open­ing of her con­stituen­cy of­fices was very emo­tion­al and a hap­py day for her.