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Thursday last the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) moved into Cane View to dismantle homes people are living in. Village Voice was given a background to the government’s action by the geographic Member of Parliament (MP), Ms. Nima Flue-Bess.
September 2020, a month after the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) returned to government, the authorities visited Cane View, which is an extension of Mohca Arcadia and ancestral land. According to Bess, residents will have to be relocated to accommodate the construction of a four-lane-highway. This relocation, she said, affected 35 households and 50 children.
Some occupants took compensation but as the MP pointed out the compensation is insufficient, and persons are unable to complete their homes. Those who accepted compensation did not live off the land, whilst those who remained depend on the land for their livelihood, rearing livestock and farming.
The incident last Thursday saw members from the CHPA move in with police and workers to break down houses. The workers she believes were either Venezuelans or Cubans given the foreign language they spoke.
Flue-Bess said without prior notice workers proceeded to break the house of Mr. Mark Hyman, who has been living in the area for 35 years, whilst the CHPA and police looked on.
Hyman rears pigs and chickens, grows permanent and cash crops. He sells eggs, pork, vegetables (greens) to the community for a living. Hyman said he owns 30 plus pigs, 240 chickens (140 layers, 200 meat birds). According to him, the government made an offer to him of GUY$14,000 to build a 45 feet X 24 feet house elsewhere. Money, he said, that cannot construct such a property nor help him with relocating.
A back and forth ensued between the government officials and residents about prior notification.
A helpless Hyman watched on as workers took sledgehammers to the walls of his two storey-concrete house, and his years of hard work and accumulation of wealth dismantled. He insisted he never received prior notification from the government to dismantle his house nor has the government and he had any finalisation of compensation and relocation.
The MP said she was informed the ancestral land will be given to some businessman.
Watch the tragedy here
A similar incident occurred in 2020. Lands at Success, East Coast Demerara, ancestral lands, were flooded by National Industrial & Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) to remove squatters in order that the Guyana Sugar Corporation could plant canes. The canes were never planted. The flooding resulted in damages and loss to the tune of millions to homes, furniture, household appliances, livestock, and crops. People were not compensated.
Earlier this year, without notice, persons in Linden were forcibly moved off land they were squatting on by heavy duty vehicles. Millions were lost through destruction to homes, household appliances, livestock, permanent and cash crops were destroyed.
