Bharath wants to throw out squatters to make way for food production

Vasant Bharath

Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath told reporters Thursday changes to the laws regarding squatting can help increase Trinidad & Tobago's food security.

Bharath made the point at the weekly post cabinet media briefing.

He said there is a need to amend two pieces of legislation that would allow the government to remove squatters from state lands and lease those lands to farmers to grow food. Such a move, he explained, would lower the multi-billion dollar food bill and reduce food inflation.

Bharath said the laws that need changes are the State Lands Act and Regularisation of Tenure Act. He said under the current laws the Land Settlement Agency and the Commissioner of State Lands powerless to remove squatters.

"The amendments will create a situation where squatting has become unequivocally an offence and there will be specific offences related to the issue of squatting. The Commissioner of State Lands will be in a position to move in and remove squatters almost immediately," the minister said.

Bharath suggested that the amended laws would allow the authorities to give seven days notice for squatters to leave the land. He acknowledged that such a move would add to the problem of homelessness. However he said the national housing program would be able to provide relief.

"There are some people in Trinidad and Tobago who genuinely have nowhere else to go and there are genuine cases and they go and they squat," he said.

"There are others who really attempt to take advantage of the State because they believe that the mechanism by which they are to be removed is cumbersome so that you know, it will take years. By then, their little shack will become a concrete structure."

Bharath said his ministry is currently restructuring its Land Division to disentangle the issue of land tenure in order to reduce the lease processing time to six months.