Lee: Does land bill create bobol?

David Lee
David Lee

WILL corruption be created by land registration officials being given too much power by the new Land Adjudication Act, asked Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee in the Lower House yesterday. “I hope we don’t have another a ‘Licensing Office’ in the making with this bill,” said Lee referring to a long-standing perception of corruption at an existing institution.

He said the Land Adjudication (Amendment)(No 2) Bill 2017 gives officials “a tremendous amount of power.” Lee hoped measures would be enacted to stop corruption and tampering by such officials. He regretted that the bill expressly excluded these officials from any personal liability in doing their job in good faith. “This causes me grave concern. I hope the Attorney General (AG Faris Al-Rawi) can alleviate such fears.” Lee added that while the bill says officials are named by the President, in practice it will be done by Cabinet, which he feared open up a prospect of “jobs for the boys.” He said these officials have the power to change land boundaries and to recommend sums of compensation. “Let the AG show these officers will not be political appointees.”

These posts are adjudication, deputy adjudication, demarcation, research and survey officers, Lee said.

He queried Al-Rawi’s earlier implication that a squatter has an easier access to occupy private lands than State lands.

Al-Rawi in piloting the bill earlier had said a squatter can seek title over a plot of land he/she has been on for 30 years, but can seek rights to private land after 16 years.

The AG informed the House the computerised land registry at the Registrar General’s Office, the Property Information Management System, is back online and working. Alleging the former Peoples Partnership (PP) government had failed to renew the necessary software licence to use the system, he boasted, it has now “been rescued.”

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh later hit Lee’s fears for corruption by alleging two dubious land deals under the PP, namely a $400 million settlement for land acquisition for the Point Fortin Highway and secondly the fencing off of 77 acres of Caroni land, valued at $300 million, by the firm, SIS. Oropouche West MP Vidia Gayadeen Gopeesingh lamented hundreds of outstanding claims for compensation at the Office of Commissioner of Valuations. Here some cases have been pending so long, the interest accrued exceeds the principal of the original principal sum, she said, noting nine per cent interest-rates recently lowered to five per cent.

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