20,000 land tenure cases still to be settled

CARLA BRIDGLAL

Some 20,000 files – dating from as far back as 1946 – still need to be processed before farmers can finally receive their leases to confirm land tenure, Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat has said. These include farmers who need their occupation of state lands regularised, and leases that have expired and need to be renewed.

“It’s slow,” Rambharat admitted to the Newsday at a seminar on Family Farming in the Caribbean at the University Inn and Convention Centre, St Augustine, on Tuesday.

He said the ministry is right now dealing with 3,000 approvals that had been granted by Cabinet 25 years ago, for which no leases had been issued. Some of the oldest leases still to be processed are for one-year tenures in Allendale, Toco. The paper was so frail, Rambharat said, that he needed to handle them with care or else they fell apart.

“Going to Cabinet is one of the most time-consuming processes, and to know that so much time has passed and no lease has been granted is a problem. We are focused on that. We also have batches of approvals going to Cabinet from major areas like Orange Grove, Plum Mitan and Tabaquite,” he told Newsday.

All state land transactions must go through Cabinet, since it is considered a disposal of a state asset and the discussion is necessary to ensure an adherence to policy, the minister said. “The inefficiency isn’t at Cabinet, though, it’s getting there and then what happens after.”

What make assessments so time-consuming, he said, is that ministry officials have to visit every parcel of land to make sure it is being used according to its purpose. If the land is not being used for farming, for example, then its status may need to be changed or the lease renegotiated.

“There is a process where they are served with a notice to cultivate and if they don’t comply the Commissioner of State Land has the option to terminate. But realistically you will have people who have breached the tenancy and put the parcel to commercial use. It may be at such an advanced state that we have to go to Cabinet to change the lease and have those people regularized,” he said.

Rambharat said agriculture was one of the ministry’s top priorities, especially to attract new participants in agriculture.

“In all other forms of business your land is a very important asset. Businessmen like to have their land first to build on. In the case of farmers, it seems to be the priority that has been put last. We have gone through decades with problems for tenure,” he said.

In the last two years, however, Rambharat said, there has been some progress, with the main component being investments in technology to convert paper applications to electronic ones, as well as using GPS to track what is happening on farms.