'Demolition of businesses by HDC will create bandits'

SMALL business operators at Lisas Gardens, Couva, are appealing to the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) to have a heart.

This after some eight structures from which they ran businesses outside their HDC homes to earn a livelihood were demolished on Wednesday.

More are to be torn down by the HDC, which has begun to implement its policy of demolition and eviction of occupants in breach of the homeowners' rules. The HDC homeowner’s manual permits occupation for residential purposes, not commercial use.

Last week the demolition crew dismantled a hardware store being run at Oropune Gardens, and on Wednesday the crew moved into Couva.

Spokeswoman for the Couva residents Mary Peltier said notice was given for the removal of the “illegal structures” from which people ran food, fruit and vegetable stalls, car wash, shoe repair and furniture shops, among other small businesses.

“Less than two days later they were torn down, resulting in mega-losses of perishable goods and infrastructure.

“All of these people are poor people, trying to earn an honest living because they are unemployed. They have been providing a service to the community who could just walk down the road and get their fruits or vegetables to cook, instead of having to take a taxi to go up the road.

“When you taken away food from people mouth, displacing these youths who are unemployed, ent you putting the people who living here at risk?

“If they can’t get money honestly, they will come at us. HDC will create bandits,” she predicted.

Couva South MP Rudy Indarsingh said Peltier and others have sought his intervention and he will be writing to HDC chairman and managing director Newman George and Brent Lyons, as well as Housing Minister Edmund Dillon, to see what alternative arrangements can be made for his constituents.

“I am condemning the callous and insensitive action of the HDC and the government," he said. "Because in Couva/Point Lisas people have lost their jobs at Arcelor Mittal, Centrin, Tube City, IPSL, Petrotrin.

“I am saying we must engage in social dialogue from a governmental point of view before you pursue such heartless action against poor people who are trying to eke out a living through self-employed means.

“I am also calling on the HDC and the minister to find out whether any official of the PNM party who sits on the central executive of the PNM and in the Parliament, whether they have acquired or have businesses on the HDC land, how they acquired it and under what terms and conditions.”

Indarsingh said he had been told the official has been granted a “free pass” by the HDC to do the same thing the poor people are being punished for.

He said Couva is a hot spot and depriving people of an honest income could push them in another direction.