Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal has refuted allegations made by the opposition of the allocating of lands at Cane View, Mocha Arcadia that was once a squatting area.
The opposition in a press release on Friday said the government had stated that the squatters were in the path of the new East Bank Demerara Road. With the use of an excavator their properties were subsequently destroyed.
“The PPP/C having claimed that the people of Cane View, Mocha were in the path of the new East Bank Road and proceeded to use an excavator to destroy their property and livelihood is now showing that the PPP/C regime is wicked, destructive, vindictive and racist,” the release stated.
According to the opposition press statement, the government has now allocated lands to, “family, friends and favourites that are much closer to the road and permitting them to build on those lands.”
The opposition further alleged in the statement that a concrete fence has already been constructed on the land just over the road from the lands on which the government destroyed properties.
The housing minister told Stabroek News in an interview yesterday that the lands are not allocated to anyone. Croal reiterated that as a part of the road project, the land is basically the government reserve that serves as a buffer when roads are constructed. Croal further stated that the development that the opposition is referring to is at Providence and not Mocha Arcadia, Cane View, where the squatters were removed. Croal emphasized that there are no structures on the land and it is basically the government’s reserve.
As an act of compensation, the opposition called for the government to allocate the lands to the people who were removed. APNU/PNCR further stated that “We reiterate that PNCR/APNU in government will have the people of Cane View given back their lands and compensate them for their sufferings under the brutal PPP regime.”
In January, 2023, after months of the government appealing to the squatters to remove from the lands to make way for the new East Bank Demerara Road, seven houses were torn down leaving some 32 persons homeless.
The well-developed squatting area at the time, housed several families, but some took compensation offered by the government before they began the demolishing exercise. The ministry said more than 20 families were relocated to nearby residential areas and have built new homes through government compensation.
The Ministry of Housing and Water had offered houses in the Little Diamond Housing Scheme, on the East Bank of Demerara, to the squatters remaining at Mocha, while warning that their homes would be demolished if they did not remove from the path of the major road project.
The Mocha Arcadia squatters were warned since October 9, 2022, that they had to move to make way for an East Bank Road link. The government had said it had made offers of housing and land but that these were refused and the squatters had made unreasonable demands at the instigation of the opposition. They had defied attempts by the Ministry of Housing to evict them and a standoff developed with dozens of residents and members of the opposition arriving on the scene. The structures were subsequently torn down.
