The Government has identified more than 1,000 squatters who will have to be relocated, even as it continues efforts to regularise thousands of other occupants of State lands, Minister of Housing Collin Croal has said.
Croal, while appearing recently on the Guyana Dialogue, said the Government has adopted an aggressive approach to addressing squatting, with efforts focused on determining which settlements can be regularised and which occupants must ultimately be removed.
He explained that squatting involves persons occupying land without having been legally assigned the property or holding any form of ownership.
The Minister said the Government has, however, sought to regularise occupation where the location and circumstances permit, rather than automatically removing residents.
Over the past five years, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) has conducted more than 2,000 regularisation exercises, allowing occupants in areas deemed suitable for regularisation to secure legal ownership of the land.
Croal said the process involves assessing settlements and determining whether residents can remain, while taking into consideration requirements for roads, drainage and other infrastructure.
Where those requirements can be accommodated, occupants may remain and proceed towards obtaining legal ownership.
However, the Government has drawn a firm line on squatting in areas that cannot be safely or legally regularised.
Croal identified riverbanks, reserves, lands required for drainage and irrigation, and areas close to the seabed as locations where the Government has a zero-tolerance policy towards squatting.
“If you are living on the riverbank, if you are living near to the seabed, then those are areas that have zero policy tolerance to allow squatting. So, they have to move,” Croal said.
He disclosed that the Ministry has logged more than 1,000 occupants who fall into the category of persons who will have to be relocated.
The Minister said several communities have been identified as having squatting issues, including Kaneville, Lusignan, Joe Vieira Park, Annandale, Good Hope and Riverview.
At Kaneville, more than 75 occupants have been documented as part of the Ministry’s assessment.
Croal said Ministry teams have been engaging occupants in affected communities and determining which persons can be accommodated through regularisation and which cases require relocation.
He also pointed to squatting in areas around Ogle, Cummings Lodge and Plum Park, Sophia, where the Ministry initially identified between eight and nine households or structures.
Following engagements with residents, that number was reduced to approximately six.
Croal said the Ministry has sought to work with affected residents by issuing notices, engaging them on their circumstances and, in some cases, providing avenues to apply for house lots.
He stressed that residents also have a responsibility to cooperate with the process and seek to regularise their housing circumstances.
Croal said, “The government is working with you to ensure that we give you access or provide an avenue. But the least that you can do is come here to the Ministry and put your house in order. Apply and be like a pending applicant, like anyone else.”
The Minister maintained that the Government’s squatting policy must also take into account thousands of persons who have followed the formal housing application process and remain without land.
He said more than 75,000 applicants are currently in the formal system awaiting house lots in their respective regions.
According to Croal, these applicants have remained in the housing queue while renting, living with relatives or relying on other temporary arrangements.
He questioned why persons who illegally occupy State lands should receive preferential treatment over applicants who have followed the established process.
“What makes these other people different?” Croal asked, stressing the need for the Government to balance the circumstances of squatters with those of persons who have been waiting through the formal housing system.
The Minister said the Government will therefore continue to regularise settlements where this is possible, while pursuing relocation where occupation is incompatible with infrastructure, drainage, environmental or other public requirements.
He said the Ministry has a structured process for dealing with affected occupants and will continue engaging them to find solutions where possible.
However, Croal warned that cooperation is essential and that persons who refuse to comply with the process could eventually face enforcement action.
“If you don’t abide and you don’t put your house in order, then we will have to come up with the ultimate means of breaking. And that’s a fact,” he noted.
Minister Croal maintained that the Government has been accommodating towards squatters, particularly by pursuing regularisation where possible and providing affected persons with avenues to secure legal housing.
