Minister of Housing Collin Croal yesterday made a final plea to the remaining Mocha/Arcadia squatters who haven’t taken up the move-in-ready house deal, as he announced that demolition will begin today so that the road project for that area could commence.
Croal said that government’s recent offer to the five squatters whose homes are an encumbrance to the alignment path for the new road is in no way rewarding the unlawful act, but it was providing a humanitarian solution.
This newspaper understands that some of the five persons have already taken up the deal.
“It has been a long process…we engaged the squatters and offered, with expediency, a solution. We did not just go and demolish. The first action is always engaging. Some have accepted… and we have started breaking and will continue,” Croal told Stabroek News yesterday when asked for an update.
Pointing to the efforts made to remove the squatters, Croal informed that since 2008 the PPP/C had been trying to engage those living illegally along the proposed road alignment. Those efforts continued up to 2015, to no avail.
And when the Irfaan Ali administration took office in 2020 and set out its short, medium, and long-term infrastructural development agenda, the squatters were again engaged and told of plans and how their illegal living would hamper progressive plans for hundreds of thousands that would be plying the route.
The group had initially agreed to move but then, according to Croal, the issue got political. “The Mocha issue took on a political twist… an anti-developmental twist because it seems that the opposition doesn’t want rapid growth. They encouraged the persons to not accept, without a solution. They didn’t even encourage the people to come in and engage us,” he lamented.
He said that one opposition parliamentarian has been “very confrontational” and without reason wants the squatters to remain in the location.
However, even if they do not accept the offer, the path for the road alignment will be cleared and works will begin. “We are continuing our demolition,” Croal stressed.
And while there have been many complaints by legitimate land applicants that squatters seem to attract government’s attention more than those who are waiting on approvals, the Minister said that this was not the case. “We are not rewarding squatting,” he assured.
Croal pointed out that government’s posture that no new squatting will be recognized still stands, even as he explained that his ministry was swiftly working to clear up the backlog on aged applications.
“No new squatting will be recognized,” he stressed.
Last week the Ministry of Housing and Water announced that it was offering houses in the Little Diamond Housing Scheme, also on the East Bank of Demerara, to the five squatters at Mocha, while warning that their homes will be demolished if they do not remove from the path of a major road project.
According to a notice published in this newspaper by the ministry, it is prepared and has available “move-in ready single flat two-bedroom housing units” for the squatters, whom it identified as five families.
“Should the last offer be rejected by these illegal squatters, the Ministry will have no other choice but to proceed with a demolition exercise,” the notice said.
The families have been identified as those of Joyann Alexis Ellis, Mark Gordon, Junior Ellis, Abigail Ifill, and Anneita Beaton.
In an interview with Stabroek News, Beaton maintained that the families are willing to move if they are compensated properly. The woman mentioned that the remaining families are commercial business owners and use their properties for their livelihoods. This includes cattle rearing. As a result, she said they want the ministry to also provide places, such as farm lands, so that they can continue with their businesses as they are their respective sources of income.
The notice said the squatters were given two-week final notices from November 5 but these had all been ignored. “Every effort by the Ministry has been met with harsh, baseless and irrational resistance,” it added, while noting that like others, the squatters had been offered full compensation for their properties, a free residential house lot and a grace period for the construction of their new homes. “These offers have been rejected on all fronts,” it said.
The Mocha squatters are said to be in the path of a link for the Eccles to Great Diamond Highway, which is expected to ease traffic congestion for thousands along the East Bank Demerara corridor.
In its notice to the squatters, the ministry said more than 20 families have relocated to nearby residential areas and have built new homes through government compensation.
The notice said the government and by extension the ministry stands ready to work with all Guyanese in their best interest. “However, we will no longer stand by and allow a nation’s development to be held hostage by illegal activities of any sort,” it added, while warning of the planned demolition should its last offer be rejected.
