The fact that hundreds of Bozine Town residents have been waiting for more than a decade for a resolution to a longstanding land dispute, Garden Hills Member of Parliament (MP) Brensil Rolle said this is “disturbing.”
The newly elected MP, in his contribution to the budget debate in the Lower Chamber of Parliament yesterday, assured the affected residents that the government will attempt to bring resolve to the matter in the quickest time possible.
It is a plight he said the previous Christie administration had promised to bring residents out of, but failed to do so.
Back in 2004, residents were ordered by the Land Development Company (LANDCO) to vacate the properties they lived on within a two-week time frame, compensate that company for land or face legal action.
Since then, the case has been lingering in the courts, while successive governments have promised to expedite and help bring resolve to the matter.
Mr. Rolle admitted he and the government are no strangers to this case as he noted there was a setback to their first attempt to intervene.
“We began this journey in 2007 when the residents of Bozine Town came to us. We met with their association and we met with them individually. We got a surveying company to survey the land to determine who was occupying the land,” Mr. Rolle said.
“Our only shortfall by 2012, Mr. Speaker, was because one of the lawyers who was representing the other side, who ran for the PLP in Free Town, did not want to come to the table just before election to sign off on the papers.”
Meantime, the MP threw stones at the former area representative, Dr. Kendal Major, lamenting his failure to come through for residents of Bozine Town.
“Regrettably Mr. Speaker, the only time the residents of Bozine Town heard from their representative on this matter was one week before election,” Mr. Rolle said.
“One week before election, he reported to the residents that the matter was before the courts. Mr. Speaker, this was not good representation, but as my friends reminded me, please don’t kill a dead horse.”
The residents won the case last year in the Court of Appeal, but the case is now being appealed in the Privy Council.
