125 Cotton Tree families receive land titles after occupying land for decades

…land ownership 1st step in constructing secure future – Pres Ali

One hundred and twenty-five families of Cotton Tree Village were given titles to the land they have been occupying for generations. The distribution, which took place at Rosignol on Friday, takes the number to over 300 families that would have been provided with land titles from that community under the Government’s land regularisation programme. Addressing residents of the West Coast of Berbice (WCB) region on Friday, President Dr Irfaan Ali said the current Administration has a historic and proven record of expanding land ownership in Guyana. Tens of thousands of house lots have been distributed to ordinary Guyanese. The Government’s strategy of enhancing the well-being of citizens is focused on expanding economic opportunities so people can earn more. President Dr Irfaan Ali said that the Government has worked to enhance disposable income so families can save and invest, noting that taxes have been reduced, including adjusting the income tax threshold to ensure more money remains in workers’ pockets. A key component of the strategy to enhance the well-being of citizens is land ownership. Land ownership is the first step in constructing a secure future, the President noted. Squatter settlements have been regularised, transforming uncertainty into security and fear into confidence. The President said regularisation turns insecurity into stability while noting that a land title turns occupation into ownership and turns a family into stakeholders in a nation’s future. Pointing out the significance of Friday’s event, he noted that giving the titles to families was not charity and referred to it as empowerment, explaining that when a person owns land, they own an asset which can appreciate in value and be developed and used as collateral.
Land titles, the President explained, can be passed on to children and become a foundation for entrepreneurship, for housing, for farming and for small business. Land, he said, is not just soil, but rather it is security.
“Land is not just property. It is power. For the beneficiary, acquiring land provides a jumpstart in life. It is a platform from which dreams can be built. It is the first step in constructing a stable future, just as our fore parents once did. Ask yourself, how many success stories in Guyana began with land? How many families moved from poverty to progress because someone owned a plot of land? How many children went to school because a family had stability at home? Land is where the story begins,” the Head of State pointed out.

Investment
Ali noted that the certificates of title that were distributed in Cotton Tree will unlock potential and create pathways. The President said it is an investment in the present and future well-being of people. “To the 125 families, I say this directly: see this land not as an entitlement, but as a responsibility. See it not as an end, but as a beginning. See it not as paper, but as a possibility. Use it wisely. Develop it thoughtfully. By tomorrow, many people will be rapping at your doors to buy it out. Be careful in the decisions you make. Understand the value you now have. Protect it carefully. It is yours. You now have the title to a piece of this planet we call Earth. It is yours, and you cannot be deprived of it without your consent. You can use it to improve your well-being and that of your family,” he asserted. Meanwhile, Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall noted that the cost for the process of serving, regularising and processing of the titles was borne by the Government. Nandlall, who is also the Attorney General (AG), pointed out that the land the fore parents of those families are dwelling on had always been state-owned, even though they had been occupying it for years.
“What that means is that all the generations of people who lived there were never the legal owners of those properties. They couldn’t produce a legal instrument that definitively proclaimed them to be the owner. They could not have sold and passed a title.  And as a result, they could not have gotten the real market value for their property. Because a certificate of title or transport for a property enhances the value of the property. They could not have gone to the bank and used that as collateral to borrow money to invest, to improve their lives or to send their children to school. They could not have passed it properly to their future generations because there was nothing to pass,” he explained. According to Nandlall, getting the titles into the hands of the families was a significant achievement.
“It changes the future of generations to come, and our Government undertook this exercise free of cost. The Government bore all the costs of this exercise,” Nandlall said.