Rambharat denies government taking away lands from ex-Caroni workers

AGRICULTURE Minister Clarence Rambharat on Saturday described Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh as being "completely out of touch with reality" when the Opposition MP claimed Government was trying to take away lands offered to former Caroni (1975) Ltd workers when the company closed in 2003.

Responding to a statement issued earlier by Indarsingh, Rambharat said, "The issue is not the rights of the former (Caroni 1975 Ltd) workers to the state-owned land under the 2003 VSEP (voluntary separation of employment packages)."

"The issue is the obligations under the leases to use the land for agriculture," he said.

Indarsingh claimed Government was trying to repossess lands given to ex-Caroni workers as part of a legally-binding arrangement registered in the Industrial Court in 2003, derived after negotiations between Caroni and the then All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Trade Union, which he once led as its president.

Indarsingh accused Rambharat of demonising former Caroni workers while being unconcerned about the status and occupancy of farming lands in other parts of the country.

He claimed Rambharat "has failed woefully to incentivise farming and to develop such lands, and he ought to deliver to ex-Caroni workers before attempting to provoke and vilify them for his cheap political gains."

Rambharat countered that Indarsingh, a former minister in the ministry of finance, "must know that as late as September 4, 2015, three days before the 2015 general election, the UNC was paying contractors out of a $400 million allocation for the development of access roads to two-acre parcels of land developed for these workers."

He said, "Billions have been spent and billions are still being claimed by contractors for these works on the two-acre parcels and the residential lots."

"My focus on lease distributions in the 2015-2018 period was to ensure the former workers had leases and variations to leases."

After indicating that over 7,000 title documents were distributed in several ceremonies, he said, "At the same time I have also been dealing with the Carlsen Field, Wallerfield and other expired leases around the country as well as hundreds of productive farmers who are on state land without documentation."

"The issue is very simple. These leases contain an obligation to do agriculture and the lands must be put into production.

"The leases contain a process for the lease holders to be notified and called upon to put the land into production. So that is the process to be followed."

Using a plot by plot review, Rambharat said the ministry knew the status of each plot. "There are a few hundred who have genuine issues relating to a pipeline blocking access. Some have other issues that are genuine and we will address those."

But he added, "A few plots have been the subject of police matters because of allegations of fraud or multiple sales of the same plot."

In the budget debate in the Senate last October, Rambharat disclosed that of the 3,134 parcels of distributed Caroni agricultural land, only 512 had any type of cultivation. He said occupiers were not using the land for agriculture but held out for someone else to use it for commercial, housing or industrial activity.

He said the Estate Management and Business Development Corporation (EMBD) spent $4 billion to develop the plots. He said he expected the EMBD to terminate the leases of people occupying the land but not using it for agriculture.