Land Minister urges patience, says lawsuit could ‘open can of worms’

Housing and Land Minister Andrew John is urging people who received documents to purchase land under the previous Unity Labour Party (ULP) government to be patient, as the review is almost complete.

“We have not decided that we are going to change all that took place, but we are letting you know that the process is under review,” John said on NBC Radio on Tuesday.

He was responding to reports that some 215 recipients of lands were threatening to sue the New Democratic Party government because they were not allowed to make payments on the land.

Lawyer Adrian Odle, who is among the team of lawyers working with the affected individuals, had indicated that 215 Vincentians had been interviewed with reports of discrimination and breaches of contracts on behalf of the government.  

Odle wrote that across the country, people who received contracts for small parcels of land were being told that no further payments would be accepted.

However, John said that land management was a serious issue and that he had seen the reports of the impending lawsuit against the government.

“It was kind of amusing to me because I said, ‘Is either this lawyer is making a joke or he is making a mockery of the whole system because what he is saying to us is that 215 persons were given parcels of land during the election cycle and that in itself, if you look at it on the surface of it, that is questionable’,” John said.

“And of course we as a government, as a responsible government, have an obligation to look at how those lands were distributed,” he added.

John said the ULP government has been distributing land for some time, but it was strange that most of it was distributed around the time of the last general election, with the majority distributed in North Windward.

John said that based on the information, over 150 lots were distributed in that constituency alone.

There were 67 lots distributed in the area of Tourama and 91 distributed in Langley Park, the minister said.

“Now, you tell me, in one constituency that’s 91 plus 67, giving 150, just a rough number without doing the actual maths; and you give 150 families permission. Now, remember it does not mean that all those who received lands are from North Windward,” he said.

John asked whether the ULP administration had intended to use the land distribution to influence the outcome of the election.

He said the government had a responsibility to ensure that land was distributed equitably and ethically among citizens.

The minister said that only North Windward and North Leeward had excess land for distribution amid a nationwide shortage, adding that people did not want to take up residence in those areas because of their proximity to the volcano.

“But whatever land is there, people want equal opportunity to get a piece of it,” he said.

John, whose full portfolio is housing, land management, urban development, and informal settlement upgrading, said that after being assigned the portfolio, he did not have the list of people who had applied for land.

He, however, said he understood that thousands of Vincentians had applied, adding that this did not mean that those who received land had applied.

John said that the threatened legal action was intended “to open a can of worms”.

“One of the stipulations on these lands is that if you’re going to pay for it, you have 12 months in which to make whatever payment,” he said.

The minister said that over the last 20 years, people who were assigned lands built homes on them but did not pay for them.

“… if you are saying you’re going to sue the government, it means that we have to go back and review all those person who breached the contract and say, ‘Well, hey, no, you breached the contract, so this land should not belong to you anymore.’

“Do we want to? Is that a route that we would want to take with our people? Of course not!” John said.

“All we are saying to the people who were given the opportunity, … all we are asking is for some time to review and the process is almost finished,” he said.

The minister said the government has not written to anyone informing them that they would be losing their land, although the land was distributed through a Cabinet memo.

The minister said people often forgot that one Cabinet can rescind what another Cabinet did.

“That is all part of it, but we are not going about trying to victimise people or trying to say that you should not get that or you should not get that.

“All we are saying, let us look at how it was done because there are still people who are coming forward saying that they applied for years and gotten no response and these are people living within the same community,” John said.