EVICTION FEAR

Residents occupying homes in the path of the Government’s proposed Churchill Roosevelt Highway Extension to Manzanilla have been issued notices by an engineering company, which has begun carrying out land surveys in the area.

So said United National Congress (UNC) senator and attorney Gerald Ramdeen, who met with close to 150 distressed residents of the constituency on Friday at Lewis Street, Cumuto, to discuss the development.

He said the residents, who fear they will lose their properties, began receiving the notices several weeks ago.

Ramdeen said the company, Voltec Engineering and Surveying Services Ltd, has been retained by the State to start surveying land in the area.

The company, established in 1996, is located at 10 Rushworth Street, San Fernando.

Contacted yesterday about the development, Works Minister Rohan Sinanan claimed he did not know residents had begun receiving notices about the survey.

The minister claimed he also did not know about Friday’s meeting in Cumuto but said the National Infrastructure Development Co Ltd (NIDCO) was in charge of the project.

“Remember, if the Government has a project and in the case, NIDCO, there will be several aspects to the project. So, that is probably one aspect of it,” he told Sunday Newsday.

“You just don’t build a highway just like that. You have to go through processes and things like that. So, they surveys are probably part of the process.”

He added: “It is a project and it entails different aspects to it. You have the social aspect, then you have the land acquisition. It is an ongoing process.”

Sinanan said he was not involved in the project on a daily basis.

“NIDCO is handling the project.”

Sunday Newsday yesterday obtained a copy of the Voltec’s notice to the residents, which was dated November 8, 2018 and signed by the company’s managing director Roger Rajan.

Rajan said the company had been commissioned by NIDCO to conduct cadastral surveys for the purpose of acquisitions along the proposed Churchill Roosevelt Highway Extension to Manzanilla (Phase 1).

Rajan said the surveys would be carried out over a period of three months during which time, the team’s presence will be noted.

He said “any assistance, site access, survey plans, deed/lease information and cooperation towards our employees would be kindly appreciated during the course of the exercise.”

Ramdeen said even though work on the highway had begun, residents have not been told which properties were earmarked for demolition.

“What was most disturbing about hearing the plight of the residents is that up to now, even though works have commenced on the highway and the demolition of the reserve through which the highway is running, the residents have not been told exactly which properties are going to be the subject of demolition or acquisition by virtue of the actions of the State in the highway,” Ramdeen said.

He claimed residents, at various consultations, were not even told exactly where the highway would pass.

Ramdeen said: “That poses a bit of a difficulty because most of the people in that area that has been earmarked for the highway, they are occupiers of land without deeds and they have not been provided with any kind of legal advice as to what their legal entitlement is.”

Ramdeen said as a result, he and others have agreed to meet with the affected residents on a continuing basis in order to provide advice to them “so that if their property is subject to acquisition, they would have the proper legal advice to know exactly what is to be done and what they are entitled to.”

He added: “But it is a very unsatisfactory position that persons whose property can be earmarked and the possibility is that they can lose their home, but do not know as yet what the position is with respect to their properties. But we have given an undertaking to deal with this matter in a very speedy way.

“We are going to provide legal advice to all of those people who require that kind of advice and we are going to ensure that they get what they are entitled to if their properties are to be acquired.”

The action comes some five months after the government was given the go-ahead to resume work on the controversial highway.

In August, the Privy Council dismissed an appeal brought by the Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS), which had challenged the Environmental Management Authority’s June 2017 decision to grant a certificate of environmental clearance (CEC) to the Ministry of Works for the five-kilometre highway in the Sangre Grande area.

The FFOS had submitted that the CEC was “unreasonable, illegal, procedurally improper, irrational, null and void and of no effect.” The ministry has said the project is expected to benefit citizens, particularly in Sangre Grande, Cumuto, Manzanilla and its environs.

It also said the project was always intended to proceed in a manner that would not have disrupted the Aripo Savannas, an environmentally sensitive area, which has been a bone of contention for the FFOS.

Ramdeen yesterday said he found it strange that when the acquisition of lands for the Point Fortin Highway was being done, the State had pursued compulsory acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act, which provides a statutory scheme for the issuing of notices so that persons will know exactly what the position is and whether or not their properties are not earmarked for acquisition.

“As we see now, this project has started more than a year ago, we haven’t seen any notices being issued for the acquisition of land in the area and the residents are, therefore, in a quandary and in a state of anxiety as to how they are to be treated with respect to their property.”

Cumuto/Manzanilla MP Christine Newallo-Hosein, meanwhile, yesterday deemed as “illegal,” the move to acquire the residents’ lands without proper consultation.

“The meeting was really for the residents to indicate and to provide certain bits of information with respect to how many people will be impacted and to show that we must be a united front,” she said.

“I must say the residents of Cumuto/Manzanilla have banded themselves together and they are going to resist this move and so we are working towards reaching a stand in saying we are not going to allow the government to bulldoze us into any illegal actions which they have proceeded on. We are just saying, ‘No. Enough is enough.’” Newallo-Hosein and Cumuto/Tamana councillor Nirmal Singh are expected to again meet with the affected residents either tomorrow or Tuesday.