Removal of CJIA squatters imminent

Jul 04, 2012 News

The removal of persons squatting on Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri (CJIA) to facilitate expansion of the airport runway, is imminent.
Over 300 homes will have to be removed to facilitate the project. Occupants’ one-month deadline to vacate the area has elapsed.
Some residents who were served notices to relocate, claim the lands which they occupy belong to them through lease from the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission. But Transport Minister Robeson Benn said he is unaware of those lands “squatters” claim they own.
“There is a map of the airport property as inherited at the time the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission, doing an assessment of the property boundaries and occupancies I believe that there were only five or six so-called squatters on the property,” he said.
Benn stated that no squatter who has been protesting and decrying their removal in the media presented the Ministry with a certificate of title, a lease document or transport with respect to the airport lands, which was demarcated on maps done on the airport, at the behest of the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission.
While the Ministry is aggressively pursuing the removal of squatters in light of the airport expansion, Benn pointed out that attempts have been made in the past to remove the squatters for their own safety.
He pointed out that during a recent plane crash in Nigeria squatters were killed. He wants to prevent a similar occurrence in Guyana.
Benn recalled that when he became Transport and Hydraulics Minister there were attempts to remove squatters because of the danger they face occupying airport lands.
He said, “We went around and gave notices – we were defied. We said there should be no new building and they kept building and then we went out and took down some of those new buildings.
As I always say, the press is ignoring this… that a certain terrorist was on airport lands – squatting at the back there and we had a great near-miss with respect to that issue.”
According to Daniel Fraser, Chairman of the Timehri (North) Community Development Council (TNCDC), a group formed to represent residents and businesses, they are examining legal action.
The soil testing works being done to facilitate the airport expansion has seen over $7M in damage to the cash crop farms, residents said.
“They want us to move. We have light, water, telephone. We are not in the path of the runways. The Timehri prison is even closer to the runway. They spent millions of dollars on it last year. Nobody has told us about compensation,” resident said.
There are over 30 shops in the community, three churches, a fire station, and living quarters for prison workers.

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Removal of CJIA squatters imminent

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