NSA prepares for battle

Political Leader of the National Solidarity Assembly (NSA) Nirvan Maharaj has called on all ex-Caroni workers, cane farmers, and their beneficiaries, to prepare themselves for battle with the government for outstanding payments owed to them.

Maharaj addressed an NSA public meeting at the Down Village Recreation Ground on Saturday, and also called on all ex-Caroni workers and cane farmers to join him in a march on Friday from Rienzi Complex in Couva to the Agriculture Ministry’s offices in Chaguanas.

He said there were over 5,000 people still awaiting their severance packages.

“We have to take to the streets so that people will remember, because if we don’t, we will lose everything that is legally due to us, we will suffer and our children will suffer.” He said what is owed to former workers, and cane farmers, was their legal entitlement, not a gift or a handout.

Apart from the approximated 5,000 still awaiting lands and leases, Maharaj said there was a lack of infrastructural development on lands earmarked for former workers; the displacement of 1,200 who are yet to be relocated; 116 people who are still to be reimbursed for their residential lots and the continuous breach of the 2007 court judgement.

“The time has come to once again unite as a band of brothers and sisters and say to those in authority that enough was enough and we are demanding our lands now.”