After 30 years, some 130 families of Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo are expected to receive their land titles within the next two weeks.
These are persons who have been occupying plots of land at Acme Housing Scheme and the Vergenoegen Railway Embankment in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) since the early 1990s.
Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal made the announcement on Thursday during a meeting with residents of the community.
He said the move is in keeping with a commitment made by President Dr Irfaan Ali, who had engaged the residents earlier in the day.
Croal said presently, there are some 65 lots within the Acme Housing Scheme which started since in the 1990s under a cooperative society while Vergenoegen Railway Embankment comprises another 65 lots.
According to Croal, the preliminary works for the processing of these lands are already completed.
“We have completed the block and occupation survey, we have completed an inventory that means of all the persons who occupy along this stretch, we have already obtained the block title and we have submitted the sketch plan to Lands and Survey…It means therefore, I can safely say we will be able to complete that assignment within the two weeks timeline because we have done our preliminary works already,” he explained.
Croal said currently, the government is working to regularise lands in a number of other areas in Region Three, including Good Hope railway line, the Philadelphia railway line, a portion of Barnwell, Zeelugt, Plantation De Willem and Tuschen.
These areas, he said potentially comprise some 274 lots.
“There are a number of areas that we are committing for Region Three. We have committed that we will regularise because areas such as yours there is an immediate decision that has to be taken if we will regularise and we have no objection to where you are occupying so we will regularise,” Croal said.
He added, “In doing all of this there is one key ingredient that has to happen, that is to ascertain or to have the legal process of the transfer of the ownership of the land.”
Since assuming office, the government has embarked on a massive exercise to regularise lands across the country.
Before the residents are presented with their land titles, Croal said the Housing Ministry will conduct another exercise to facilitate the processing of their Agreements of Sale and Certificates of Title.
At the meeting, persons living in Vergenoegen also raised some infrastructural concerns which Croal said will be addressed by the subject minister.
Minister Croal was accompanied by the Director of Community Development at the Central Housing and Planning Authority, Gladwin Charles and Head of the Conveyance Unit, Esther Stephen.
