Shanty town eviction deadline hard and fast

Shanty town eviction deadline hard and fast
Minister of Labour and Senator Dion Foulkes

Minister of Labour Dion Foulkes said there will be no “backing down” from the deadline that was set for shanty town residents to vacate their homes.

The nationwide shut down is a part of the government’s efforts to rid the country of unregulated communities.

At the start of the year, the government made it known that shanty towns identified in New Providence, Grand Bahama, Abaco, Andros, and Eleuthera would be shut down by mid-2018.

Foulkes said there has already been significant headway in place for the deadline, while also confirming the government has successfully identified a number of persons who were responsible for leasing land to illegals.

“We’ve met with five so far, two of them I cannot locate. I don’t know whether they are in the jurisdiction,” Foulkes said.

“There’s no problem that we encounter or that we see that would cause us to change the July 31 date for the shanty town removals.

“All of the timelines we’ve had and most of them are internal, we met them all.”

Also during the government’s crackdown on the unregulated communities, Immigration Minister Brent Symonette made a call for all Haitian nationals who wished to be regularized, to come forward for consideration.

He confirmed to Eyewitness News yesterday that nearly two dozen names have been presented to him since the announcement was made two weeks ago.

“The pastor, whose church was used in The Mud, assisted me with some 19 names, when the prime minister and I were at the recent convention for Haitian pastors,” Symonette said.

“I addressed them and we agreed to assist them, whereby the Haitian nationals would approach their pastors, their pastors would approach the league, and the league would approach me. I’m still in the process in formalizing that – it should be out in short order,” Symonette said.