As the Ministry of Communities moves ahead with plans to relocate squatters living at Lombard and Broad streets to Plantation Prosperity at Barnwell, in the Mocha/Arcadia constituency, Junior Minister Valerie Patterson-Yearwood has said that all residents would benefit from planned infrastructural and social development.
Patterson-Yearwood made the announcement on Monday during a press conference at the boardroom of the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), where she stressed that the rejection of the relocation of the squatters by the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) was discriminatory and that government could not allow communities to determine who gets to move in.
“If we allow the residents of Mocha to determine whether or not we relocate these people there, then every area and every village in Guyana will have to determine who comes next to them and government cannot allow that. They are Guyanese!” she argued. “There is an urgent need for lands, [and the] lands [are] next to Mocha. Mocha was not selected for any special reason… I don’t know what is the reason for the discrimination because Guyanese are Guyanese and we cannot discriminate against people,” she added.