The Grenada government Friday announced plans for a project aimed at increasing land ownership for squatters.
“The program 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.
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She told a news conference that the program would result in the state having legal ownership of less land while at the same time, hundreds of illegal occupiers of Crown or state land would receive legal titles to the land.
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, and completed the payment but have not yet received 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 program to go into a third year,” said Bain-Thomas, adding that it 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 percent of the land being utilized for forest reserve, dry forest and watershed areas.
“However, it’s the policy of the government to encourage ownership of land title in Grenada and that is what this program is all about…a large part of that 10 percent 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,” she said, noting that the Land Regularization Project will create growth and economy empowerment. CMC
