40 De Endragt residents receive land titles after decades-long wait

After decades of waiting, some 40 residents of De Endragt on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) finally received their Certificates of Title, granting them legal ownership of the lands.
This momentous occasion comes just six weeks after President Dr. Irfaan Ali visited the community.
The titles were formally handed over to the residents by Housing and Water Minister Collin Croal and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), Sherwyn Greaves.
This event marks a significant milestone in the ongoing regularisation efforts within Plantation De Endragt (Mon Repos North), part of a broader initiative led by the CH&PA’s Community Development Department.

Recently, 31 additional residents signed their Agreement of Sale, furthering the process of securing their land titles. According to Croal, this initiative reflects the agency’s dedication to fulfilling President Ali’s mandate to provide ownership documents to residents in unregularised areas.
“When we were doing the signing up for the titles, we had persons who were allocated De Endragt, many of them came to sign…we are here now regularising and processing the ownership. On the Southern side, we have another area where we would have allocated since we got back into office, and as part of our 36,000 allocations to date, we allocated a portion in De Endragt”, he said.
Croal further emphasised the government’s commitment to ensuring that every citizen, regardless of where they live, enjoys a better quality of life.
“We are committed as a team, we are committed as a government to ensure that our citizens no matter where they live, every day must be able to live a better-quality life and have a better lifestyle.”
The Mon Repos North area, historically identified as unsuitable for housing due to its swampy terrain, began seeing informal settlements in the early 1970s.
As the area served as a major “port” for contraband, individuals erected makeshift structures to support their businesses. However, following the removal of the ban on basic food items by the PPP Government in 1992, the area’s residents shifted from commercial to residential use, gradually improving their dwellings.
In 2010, CH&PA initiated a Block and Occupation survey as part of the regularisation process. Subsequent verification exercises conducted by the Community Development Department and the Surveys Unit revealed the presence of 67 occupied lots, 44 lots verified for allocation, four lots awaiting transfer from the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), three abandoned structures, and several other lots with unique circumstances, including those owned by overseas residents or deceased individuals.
The recent distribution of land titles is a direct result of these ongoing efforts. With the ownership of the land now finalised, CH&PA is prepared to process the remaining titles, bringing much-needed legal recognition and security to the residents of De Endragt.