Grenada Announces Plans to Increase Land Ownership For Squatters
ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada – Grenada's government has announced plans for a project aimed at increasing land ownership for squatters.
“The programme will be for about two years in the first instance,” said Gemma Bain-Thomas, administrative executive in the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Forestry and Marine Resources.
She told a news news conference that the programme will result in the state having legal ownership to less land while at the same time hundreds of illegal occupiers of crown or state land will receive legal titles to the land.
Bain-Thomas said that the approach by the government is to first focus on the group of land occupiers who have already received a Cabinet decision showing the cost of the land, completed the payment but have not yet receive title deeds.
The second group will be those who did not make complete or any payments and the final focus group will be those classified as squatters or illegal occupiers.
“Given the amount of people identified when we go on the ground we might discover other people and that might cause the programme to go into a third year,” said Bain-Thomas, adding that the programme is aimed at creating a pathway to legal ownership for squatters.
She said that the cost of the land will vary for each targeted group, with the first category paying the original cost as outlined on the Cabinet document while those without a Cabinet document or any other legal document from the State will pay what the government currently owes 10 per cent of the land being utilised for forest reserve, dry forest and watershed areas.
“However, it’s the policy of government to encourage ownership of land title in Grenada and that is what this programme is all about…a large part of that 10 per cent is in the form of forest reserve and we do have several including Grand Etang and the dry forest in other parts of the country,” he said,, noting that the Land Regularization Project will create growth and economy empowerment.
“You do have other large holdings like the state farms which also form a significant part of that ten percent. So, you have a limited amount of that 10 per cent that is available for other uses, those other uses are probably where we will be best able to help,” said Alexander.
He said the records have shown that there are more than 87,000 parcels of lands owned by citizens.
“For a relatively small country today we have on our tax roll over 87,000 parcels of land, and we must give credit to the people who have gone before us,” he said , listing the programmes of previous governments that encouraged legal land ownership.
