Dear Editor,
I am a resident of Fairs Rust, Linden and very concerned over the allocation of lands at Sections A & B Fairs Rust.
Some years ago I heard President Jagdeo say at a public meeting at the Watooka Club about this area being regularized and not to be used to build the new hospital. He then gave the instruction to Ms. Philomena Sahoye-Shury to visit the area. I don’t know if same was done but I know the persons who are living, farming and dwelling remain there. I see people every day; husbands with wife and children, who were born there. Then suddenly I read in the newspapers that the lands were being sold by tender, so I got upset because all the senior Linden officials pass the people every day (morning, noon and night) and know of the people working and living in the area.
The young people at Fairs Rust are seeking for their livelihood and to bring development to our community and to put themselves to work and not to kill and steal or traffic in drugs, but to plant, rear chickens and ducks and provide food for themselves and others. There is one man on the other side of the hill, nobody is speaking about him, he owns all the lands and it was not sold by tender but he is doing well and nobody is disturbing him. No package was published in the newspapers that he had to buy via tender, nobody has the quantity of land that he has.
Mr. President, these lands are raw bauxite, very salty, the residents have to use a lot of manure to get produce which they are doing but Linmine officials are claiming that these lands are for residential purposes. But lo and behold persons are minding cows, horses, sheep, goats to name a few, that are destroying these Fairs Rust youths who are striving for their livelihoods, and there is nobody to raise concerns with. Mr President these young people are now faced with what you call ‘pay for it or lose it’. Is it because they are poor people? Or maybe high school dropouts? What is it? These lands are being sold to them now by tender at a cost that is way above reason: $400,000, $375,000, $500,000 and maybe more. This was approved by your Cabinet, so I will put a name to it again ‘pay for it or lose it’.
Mr. President, as a concerned resident I think that these young people are being treated very unfairly owing to the fact that they were there long before the surveying was done and long before the occupational survey was done. These big ones at the Linmine Secretariat sent incorrect information to Georgetown to make it look as though we have a little New Diamond in Linden, but that is not true. These young people have been working hard to get rid of garbage, old vehicles and other waste materials that were dumped there by the Mayor and Town Council over the years gone by. They also did a lot of back filling and if they cannot pay for their lands they will lose all their labour.
Mr. President as a concerned resident I am calling on you to look into this matter with much diligence because deadlines were given to them to pay ten percent of the total cost and two weeks to pay the remainder of the total. I think this is very hard for these youths so I am calling on you to look into this matter urgently.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address supplied)
