Land title distribution empowering citizens – AG Nandlall

Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, SC, has stated that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government is empowering Guyanese with the distribution of land titles, especially to those families who have had properties for generations but no legal show of ownership.

During the recent episode of his weekly programme – Issues in the News, Nandlall noted that Government has embarked on an initiative where it is looking at areas across the country where persons have been occupying lands without any Certificate of Title. He noted that this land regularisation exercise had started during the previous PPP Administration under the Donald Ramotar presidency.
The project is currently being executed by the Legal Affairs Ministry in collaboration with the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC).
“This what we’re doing here, giving people titles to their lands, is real empowerment,” the AG posited.
Only last weekend, Minister Nandlall was in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) to roll out the land regularisation exercise in the Number Two, Number Three, Number Four, and Number Five Villages on the West Coast of Berbice.
The Attorney General further pointed out that, unlike the naysayers who are constantly talking about empowering citizens and the rights of Guyanese, especially the Afro-Guyanese, the PPP Government is taking action that would benefit people.
In fact, he noted that contrary to utterings that the current Administration is discriminating against this particular grouping, the Number Three to Five Villages are predominantly Afro-Guyanese and they are the ones who will benefit from the issuance of land titles in this leg of the exercise, which is being rolled out across the country.
“We started at Cotton Tree [in Region Five] and we are moving down the line. We have done it at Enterprise [East Coast Demerara]. We have done it on the West Coast of Demerara. We’re doing it in Essequibo. We’re doing in on the Corentyne Coast and we’re doing it in West Coast Berbice. That is empowering people,” the AG asserted.
Nandlall further disclosed that only recently, a Government team led by Prime Minister Mark Phillips went to Anns Grove on the East Coast of Demerara where they started the process that would see over 450 families getting titles for land that they and their fore parents have been occupying since the abolition of slavery.
“Since the abolition of slavery, they have been occupying lands in Anns Grove without the title. A PPP Government went in there – headed by our Prime Minister [Brig Ret’d Mark Phillips] and our Minister of Housing [Collin Croal] and Lands and Surveys as well yours truly, and we commenced an initiative that would issue to families, after 200 years or more, they’re going to get the title in Anns Grove.”
“That is empowerment, not talking about ancestral lands and causing strife in the country. It’s giving people titles for the lands that they’re occupying, that they own but they don’t have formal paper titles. It is those titles that they can now hold up and say they own that land, that they can say to the bank ‘This is my title; I want to borrow a loan,’ that they can pledge to educate their children, that they can transmit in a legal way now, properties to their heir and beneficiaries. That is empowering people…,” the Legal Affairs Minister stressed.
Since taking office in August 2020, the Dr Irfaan Ali-led Government through the Legal Affairs and Housing Ministries has commenced land regularisation exercises in several communities across the country.
During last weekend’s engagement with scores of residents in Region Five, AG Nandlall explained the importance of a formal legal title for the lands and also shared that the citizens’ cooperation is crucial for the process to be completed. This entails supporting the GL&SC so that the lands can be properly surveyed and demarcated.
“You are to assist and cooperate with the sworn land surveyors from the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission who will begin work in your community. It will entail a survey of the entire block of the village as well as an occupational survey of each house lot. It may involve persons being required to adjust their fences in order to have clear ingress and egress to streets in the community as well as to bring alignment to persons’ property that may extend beyond its lawful boundaries,” he had explained.