Dear Editor,
According to Dr Roger Luncheon, Cabinet has mandated Minister of Transportation and Hydraulics, Robeson Benn, to deal aggressively with persons who disregard environmental laws. He pointed out that the abuses range from squatting, illegal structures, dumping of waste and littering to unlicensed business activities.
In recent years, the government implemented significant institutional and policy reforms to improve the beneficial utilisation of public lands and provide equal opportunities to the population in accessing land.
Policies were formulated and programmes implemented to ensure equity and transparency in the land distribution process with the objective of enabling every Guyanese to access land for the benefits of themselves and their families.
The government in 1992, took note of urbanisation trends and the substantial squatting and the illegal structures on road reserves and the drainage reserves costing causing the government million of dollars when the area is flooded.
The Guyana Revenue Authority and the municipalities along with the neighbourhood democratic councils (NDCs) have a duty to oversee the illegal and unlicensed business activities because these entities don’t pay tax. The competent authority to approve any commercial activity is the Central Housing and Planning Authority Board, which has land use planning expertise.
The municipalities are of a sufficient scale to operate a municipal court to deal with dumping of waste and littering. Currently fines levied in the magistrate’s courts for infractions against the bylaws go to the national government.
As a former deputy mayor, I agree with Dr Luncheon that some municipalities and NDCs are not vigilant and many officers are corrupt and are not involved in supporting the administration in moving against the defaulters. Measures should be engaged to ensure that these errant officers are removed from office.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
