In light of calls from some residents of Betsy Ground Village in East Canje for the removal of the chairman and overseer of the Canefield– Enterprise Neigh-bourhood Dem-ocratic Council, overseer Andrew Lillah has defended the action taken against illegal construction.
On Monday, over one dozen residents of Betsy Ground picketed the NDC office demanding the removal of the chairman and overseer. During their half-day picketing exercise, the residents accused the duo of acts of victimization, mismanagement of resources and negligence in terms of road maintenance and the desilting of drains and canals in the village.
When contacted by Stabroek News, Lillah refuted the claims of victimization. Lillah who has been employed as the NDC’s overseer since December 11 2012 said that when he accepted the position he vowed to execute his job to the best of his abilities and to follow the procedures and guidelines written in the bylaws.
“Somewhere down the line things were going haywire; people weren’t following the instructions or I don’t know if the NDC wasn’t taking any heed to it,” he stated. The way the NDC was being managed changed with his arrival as he described his job as being such that he “advises the council and shares the bylaws with them” so that they work according to the law.
Specifically addressing the issue with Doodnauth Moses, who had claimed during the protest that he was being targeted, Lillah said “since September 2013 Moses built a fence which is ten feet in height and wanted to put a shed on top it and the gutter would be landing or being over in his neighbour yard”. The overseer went on to state that the shed was in violation of the building codes because “according to the bylaws, Chapter 1 Section 16:02, it says that a building should be like four feet away from his boundary”. As such, the authorities “served him [Moses] a notice and took him to court on May 20th 2014”, he stated. However, the case was eventually dismissed “because of lack of prosecution,” Lillah disclosed.
The lack of prosecution prompted Moses to construct another shed that the council deemed to be in violation of its building codes. This time, the shed was erected at the front of his house and the regulations were breached again, Lillah said. The only difference the second time around, Lillah noted, was the fact that “he [Moses] sent a letter with his [building] plan for the chairman of the NDC to sign because he wants to sell wine and Malta”.
However, the council did not grant permission, because as Lillah explained, “the plan needs to be reviewed because what is on the site is not on the plan and the council asked (Jailall) Kuldeep (NDC chairman) not to sign the plan until the plan has been rectified”.
Turning his attention to a similar situation with another resident, Rajmattie Pooran, the overseer stated that permission was neither sought nor given to construct the shed which is in violation of the building code. “The lady down the road did the same thing as Moses: her top – the house, the roof gutter is in the neighbour’s yard, it hangs over in the neighbour yard when you suppose to be four feet from it”, he said.
He added that “the front downstairs where she has a shed, it hangs in the neighbour yard and there is no gutter, so when the rain falls it floods the neighbour’s yard”. Lillah questioned why both Moses and Pooran appear to be disconcerted by the council’s notices for them to dismantle the sheds which are in violation of the building codes, since according to him, they were warned during the process of constructing the sheds and still proceeded to do exactly what the council warned against doing.
This, he described as one of the main struggles of the NDC. “The residents are building and are not seeking permission from the NDC. That is a big problem we facing here with the residents,” he said.
“I understand they believe they are being victimized because others have similar structures and have not been served notices,” stated the overseer. He went on to explain that this is because the council has taken a decision whereby “those who built before [the NDC began to enforce the bylaws], we will just talk to them but we are setting a precedent now with those who are building”.
Stabroek News was told that after prolonged deliberations, the council came to the conclusion that if it were to serve “notices to those people [who have already built] there will be chaos in Canje”. And thus, “they just decide that who are building now, we will take a precedent here and move forward” Lillah said.
As regards the maintenance of streets and roads in Betsy Ground, the overseer stated that the NDC has sent up a list of streets that need to be repaired to the RDC because the RDC requested it and Kuldeep Street, which had been complained about, was on the list. He added that the NDC is presently waiting on the regional administration to commence the road works.
Bemoaning the lack of cooperation given to the NDC by the residents, Lillah made an appeal for residents to support the NDC. “If you go and dig the drains with the mini-excavators and the drain is fine [narrow] you can’t trouble the drain,” he noted. “We are going through a struggle here, with residents being rebellious. And it’s not Moses alone we serve notice to; we serve notice to several other persons. We ain’t victimizing anybody, we just doing our jobs…”, he emphasized.
