By L.K. Hewlett
St. Kitts Reporter
Prime Minister Honourable Denzil Douglas has admitted that some persons have attempted to defraud the government’s latest land programme.
Under the new land initiative launched in August this year, only persons who were not already land or property owners could apply for the 5000 lots of government land to be sold at 25 locations across the country.
During his most recent press conference, Douglas revealed that persons had provided fraudulent information on the application forms by not indicating that they are property owners.
“What we have found is taking up the time, is to check the information that has been provided on the application forms. We have picked up that some people who have already been allocated government land through the NHC have applied again and have not declared that they have previously had land,” he said.
Line 11 on the application forms for this special land scheme reads: Please indicate if you are a first time land owner.
In order to prevent persons from abusing the system set up to empower citizens who do not already own a ‘piece of the rock’, Douglas said that there will be better collaboration between NHC as an agency, and the Department of Lands, which is the agency that is handling the special land distribution initiative.
The federation’s leader announced that they had processed to date, at least 1400 applications since the launch a few weeks ago and that the allocation process had already begun.
“In terms of the land distribution launched a few weeks ago, we did indicate that we were going to have at least three weeks before we could allocate them (the lots). We have already started the allocation, it is going as expected. I am sure that by the end of this week, we would have been able to screen a number of applications and be in a position to carry out the allocations.”
The lots of crown land will be sold at EC$5 per square foot, and $6.5 after the first 4000 sq. ft. The new land initiative stipulates that the land be paid for within 6 months or it would be reallocated to someone who could pay for it. Land sold through the National Housing Corporation will be sold at $3 per sq. ft. and does not have a deadline by which the land has to be paid for.
