Despite being granted its land title in 2019, the Village Council of Parabara in Region Nine is yet to receive the official documentation, which has put it at a disadvantage when seeking to get miners to abide by village rules.
According to Toshao Richard Andrew, miners are asking the Village Council to present the land title outlining the village’s boundaries when they are told that they are in Parabara. Without the land title document, he added, there is nothing that the village council can do and the miners continue to traverse in and out of the community without acknowledging the council. “We want to know what the position is with this land title because without this land title, the miners coming in and we have no right to tell them anything,” he said.
He revealed that issue is an ongoing one and at one point the council asked Regional Chairman Bryan Allicock about the land title. According to Andrew, Allicock said that the APNU+AFC administration had granted the land title. He said they were asked if they are in possession of the document and he told the Chairman that they were not.
Andrew added that although this issue was raised, to date the council has yet to receive any information about the document.
“If we have the land title document, then we will be strong enough to tell them (the miners) whatever the village rules are,” he said.
Gold mining in and around the Parabara area was halted but according to the Toshao, many miners still continue to travel through the community, which suggests that illegal mining activities are taking place in the area.
According to a report by the Department of Public Information (DPI), Parabara was among four communities that were granted titles for the establishment of legal boundaries in October 2019. Tasserene and Kangaruma, in Region Seven, received their certificates the following month but the other two communities, Parabara and Rockstone, did not.
